- - - - Copyright Grand Rapids Press
- - - - Searching for the real Dave Eggers:[All Editions]
SAN FRANCISCO -- We sat cross-legged on the dusty bookstore floor. My knees rested on the thighs of the man and woman on either side of me. We were cramped and tired of waiting. And we were the lucky ones. Best-selling author Dave Eggers stepped over bodies and carefully edged his way through the crowd. He miraculously made it to a folding table and microphone up front without crushing a hand or damaging a foot, and quickly apologized to the hundreds outside who could not get in. "Oh, man," he said. "I just wanted to read here. If you can read at City Lights, good Lord! I didn't think about this part of it, though." The crowd Eggers attracted was close to what William S. Burroughs had drawn in the mid-1980s. Fans outside stood with faces pressed against the glass. They had arrived too late, and the landmark City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and made famous by the beatniks, was full. And that's too bad, because the lucky ones were in for a good time. There was only one potential spoiler, and that was me. Like everyone else, I had thoroughly enjoyed the book and felt I had come to know Eggers. He had laid himself bare in the pages of his memoir, emerging as a bring-home-to-Mom guy I genuinely wanted to meet. But Eggers is notoriously distrustful of the media. He refuses all telephone and in-person interview requests, including one from The Associated Press for this story. The thing is, I longed for a peek at the real Eggers. At readings and in his book, he's a freewheeling, fun-loving guy. But to those who cross him, like that newspaper reporter, he can be downright mean. San Francisco was midway through Eggers' one-month, 19-city tour promoting the paperback release of "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius," currently the nation's No. 1 nonfiction paperback on The New York Times best-sellers list. It is a confessional and highly self-conscious memoir that tells the story of how -- after both his parents died of cancer within one month -- Eggers, in his early 20s, became guardian of his 8-year-old brother Christopher. With about 200,000 copies of the hardcover in print, Eggers himself has developed a cultlike following. Eggers is 30, although he looks a bit older. He wore green jeans and an olive drab T-shirt. He reminded me of Hugh Grant -- self-deprecating, seemingly shy and downright funny. - - - -
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