I read Dave Eggers latest short story collection How We Are Hungry and mostly enjoyed it. I felt that the longer stories were the most interesting and well written. Some of the shorter pieces came off as preciously whimsical or smugly knowing-the literary equivalent of a Wes Anderson film. However, the stories “The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water” and “Up The Mountain Coming Down Slowly” deomonstrate Eggers’ excellent ear for dialogue, effective characterizations, and inventive descriptions. He does an excellent job of bringing the character’s personalities and emotional states accurately to life. In the former story, we have a woman visiting a male friend in Nicaragua, and the complex emotions between the two are laid bare. And the later is a realistic rendering of a mountain climbing adventure full of the self-revelations that would most likely occur during such a challenging and arduous endeavor. Again beautifully rendered. It makes me wonder if Eggers has been doing a lot of traveling since his breakthrough success with A Staggering Work Of Heartbreaking Genius given the locations of these stories and the world traveling antics of his characters Will and Hand in his previous novel You Shall Know Our Velocity.
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