Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?

New
Hardcover
2014
$16.19

Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is Dave Eggers' brilliantly executed story of one man struggling to make sense of the world. In a barracks on an abandoned military base, miles from the nearest road, Thomas watches as the man he has brought wakes up. Kev, a NASA astronaut, doesn't recognize his captor, though Thomas remembers him. Kev cries for help. He pulls at the chain. But the ocean is close by, and nobody can hear him over the waves and wind. Thomas apologizes. He didn't want to have to resort to this. But they really needed to have a conversation, and Kev didn't answer his messages. And now, if Kev can just stop yelling, Thomas has a few questions. One of our fiercest and most compelling writers . (Sunday Times). Eggers can write about pretty much anything and make it glitter and somersault on the page ...dazzling and highly original . (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). Possibly the most admired and emulated American author of his generation . (Independent). Dave Eggers is the author of nine books, including most recently The Circle and A Hologram for the King, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern), and a monthly magazine, The Believer. McSweeney's also publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country and ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization designed to connect students with resources, schools and donors to make college possible. He lives in Northern California with his family.

Synopsis

Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? is Dave Eggers' brilliantly executed story of one man struggling to make sense of the world. In a barracks on an abandoned military base, miles from the nearest road, Thomas watches as the man he has brought wakes up. Kev, a NASA astronaut, doesn't recognize his captor, though Thomas remembers him. Kev cries for help. He pulls at the chain. But the ocean is close by, and nobody can hear him over the waves and wind. Thomas apologizes. He didn't want to have to resort to this. But they really needed to have a conversation, and Kev didn't answer his messages. And now, if Kev can just stop yelling, Thomas has a few questions. "One of our fiercest and most compelling writers". (Sunday Times). "Eggers can write about pretty much anything and make it glitter and somersault on the page ...dazzling and highly original". (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times). "Possibly the most admired and emulated American author of his generation". (Independent). Dave Eggers is the author of nine books, including most recently The Circle and A Hologram for the King, which was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award. He is the founder of McSweeney's, an independent publishing company based in San Francisco that produces books, a quarterly journal of new writing (McSweeney's Quarterly Concern), and a monthly magazine, The Believer. McSweeney's also publishes Voice of Witness, a nonprofit book series that uses oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. Eggers is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of eight tutoring centers around the country and ScholarMatch, a nonprofit organization designed to connect students with resources, schools and donors to make college possible. He lives in Northern California with his family.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
Published: 03 Jul 2014
ISBN 10: 0241146917
ISBN 13: 9780241146910

Media Reviews

One of our fiercest and most compelling writers * Sunday Times *
Eggers can write about pretty much anything and make it glitter and somersault on the page . . . dazzling and highly original -- Michiko Kakutani * The New York Times *
Possibly the most admired and emulated American author of his generation * Independent *
A jazz session - a brief, single helping of strangeness that flaunts his panache for stylistic experimentation. . . The writing is compelling and the characterization astute * Booklist *
Inherently interesting. I can think of few contemporary American writers who convey such a sense of urgency about the mess we're in. Eggers pulls no punches * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel *
A one-sitting read . . . insightful * USA Today *
One of the country's leading literary eminences * Washington Post *
Eggers writes so well you would read a computer manual if it was by him, but beneath his beguiling style is a base note of genuine concern about those who find themselves out of kilter with society. * HERALD *
His latest novella, Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? stretches his toying with literary forms to new lengths...compelling * EVENING STANDARD *
But with each tightly controlled book, Eggers' fiction becomes more prescient, moving and unsettling... Even if all generations are lost generations, we need engaged, incendiary novels which ask: What now? * INDEPENDENT *
The faint echo of Plato's dialogues . . . Raising questions about the appropriate relationship between authority and compassion. * Kirkus *
An angry and astute investigation into the state of America ... Politically and polemically engaged in the tradition of Dickens and Zola. -- Mark Lawson * Guardian *
Eggers has a knack for potent images of frustration . . [He] has produced something timely -- Sam Worley * Chicago Tribune *
A major talent. His voice - loud, sardonic, compassionate, and honest . . . Eggers has developed into a profoundly serious novelist and nonfiction writer with a social and political conscience. -- Alex Gilvarry * The Boston Globe *
Dave Eggers never writes the same book twice, and his latest may be his most unusual to date . . . [A] fleet and forceful story by one of our finest fiction writers . . .stark exchanges, with little exposition ... propels the reader to the end. -- Georgia Rowe * San Jose Mercury News *
Unmistakably the work of a singular talent. . . Even if all generations are lost generations, we need engaged, incendiary novels which ask: What now? -- Max Liu * The Independent *
Fathers is a screaming, bleating cry for society to fix itself. It is a frothing, angry, mournful meditation on what is slipping away as America plows on into the 21st century... compelling -- Henry C. Jackson * Chicago Daily Herald *
Another startling leap into new territory . . . Here is a tale as tightly wound as an alarm clock. . . Eggers has always been as elastic writer, but in Your Fathers he puts his language to the ultimate test. -- John Freeman * Toronto Star *
This short, provocative novel feels a bit like Jack Bauer stepping into Kierkegaard's collected works. . . ambitiously confronts a grand history of philosophical angst . . . Swift and smart. -- Zoe Ferraris * San Francisco Chronicle *
Engaging . . . You know what Eggers wants to say, he says it quickly, and he says it with a respectably righteous fury. And, ultimately, he says it with a compassion that's always been present in his work . . . Fascinating. -- Mark Athitakis * The Washington Post *
Within 212 pages, Eggers displays a delicate, haunting, sometimes dire picture of the world. It may not be a comfortable read, but it's an interesting take on what we believe to be true and what we hope to be true. -- Mark Lopez * Alibi.com *

Author Bio

Dave Eggers is the author of eleven books, including The Circle; Heroes of the Frontier; A Hologram for the King, a finalist for the National Book Award; and What is the What, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and winner of France's Prix Medicis Etranger and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His non-fiction and journalism have appeared in the Guardian, the New Yorker, the Best American Travel Writing and the Best American Essays. Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney's, which publishes original fiction and non-fiction, and distributes the Voice of Witness series of books, which use oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. He is the co-founder of 826 National, a network of youth writing and tutoring centres with locations around the country, and of ScholarMatch, which connects donors with students to make college accessible. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and his work has been translated into forty-two languages. He lives in Northern California with his family.