A heartbreaking work of debatable queerness

>> Is Dave Eggers gay enough for us?

by JULIET WATERS

The paperback edition of Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is different from the hardcover. It starts from both sides and you have to turn it over lengthwise to read from what looks like another book called Mistakes We Knew We Were Making. It's a clever way to introduce the revisions to the first edition. There's also a second copyright page. Under the ISBN number is a tiny paragraph which reads:

"A funny story about the chart used at the beginning of the book's other side: the chart, which listed the author as a three on a scale of gay to straight, was for whatever reason taken much, much more seriously than had been intended. And the interpretations were much too creative for comfort. There were a number of letters from AIDS educators who were very concerned about the author's later statement as to having had a few unprotected encounters. One AIDS educator posited that because a three was cited, it followed that 30 per cent of the author's sexual encounters were with men, and because the unsafe experiences were mentioned, that I was having many unsafe encounters with many men. Romantic, but untrue. Look now, outside: the kids with bikes are riding down the hill, screaming."

Turn the book over and sure enough on the original copyright page is the chart. This raises the issue of whether or not Eggers is gay enough to be included in our queer issue.

The argument against Dave Eggers being in the queer issue is solid and understandable. An author should be at least 50 per cent gay, if only because there is so little space in the media for gay lit. Why should Eggers, whose autobiography was chosen by The New York Times as one of the top 10 books of 2000, get any more press than he already has? Also, if you actually read the book, all of Eggers' sexual experiences are heterosexual. The only gay characters are a lesbian neighbour and a transsexual gym teacher. His little chart is clearly a hoax. Much like the time in the mid-'90s when he used his zine, Might, to start a rumour that Adam Rich, the kid on Eight is Enough had been shot in a parking lot.

The argument for Eggers' inclusion is not as solid and not as understandable. It posits that there's a certain po-mo queer aesthetic that runs through the book, and certain parallels can be drawn between the challenges he faced in his life and the challenges faced by many young gay men in the '90s. Eggers quotes The Importance of Being Ernest in the preface: "To have lost one parent, Mr. Worthing, might be considered a misfortune. To have lost both smacks of carelessness." When Eggers was 20, both his parents died of cancer within a month of each other. This left him as guardian of his seven-year-old brother. On a grief scale this is not unlike losing numerous friends to AIDS. And facing discrimination as a poor young, male single parent is sort of like the discrimination that young gay men face... No? His life is difficult and painful, and yet he forges on with a wit so--yes, I will say it--staggering, that he is one of the only writers of the last century worthy of being compared to Oscar Wilde. Is there really such a thing as too much attention for such a book? Plus, he has ostensibly given all the profits away. Isn't that nice?

In the end, however, there was an overriding consideration. I was travelling in a small town in the U.S. when I realized I had forgotten to pack a book for the pride issue. It was too late to find someone else to review a book, and this was the gayest book I could find in the local bookstore. Sorry, next year, I'll take a real vacation and get a 100 per cent gay writer to review a 100 per cent gay writer, guaranteeing this space will be gay squared. Okay? Oh look now: outside! A parade!

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers, Vintage, pb, 485pp, $22