I'm currently reading Dave Eggers' new book, What Is the What, a fictionalized account of the life of Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee.

Hey Drumloops -- that's a kick-ass read. I finished it just before Christmas.

I was so touched by What is the What that I really hoped it would be a memoir rather than a novel. As I read, I thought back to James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, where the memoir was determined to be a novel after the fact, so one could never know which of the most affecting parts were true

Eggers tells us in a preface that the book is a novel, but "not so very different" from Deng's own experience.

That said, if in fact the "basic events" of Deng's life are true to the story, it's still an amazing, amazing story.

Hey Drum & John,

I have heard a lot about this book and _base_d on your bringing it up in this thread, I headed on over to Amazon Canada to order it!

Lo and Behold -- none in stock and the delay is 3-4 months! I was wondering what was amiss until I read this article tonight:

More than 130 independent publishers across the country were hurled into financial crisis on Dec. 29 with the bankruptcy of the parent company of Publishers Group West, the Berkeley firm that distributes books from much of the small press world.

What a shame! In the article it states that McSweeney's had expected to receive $600,000 -- much of that from the sale of What Is the What. Profits from the book had been promised to a charity helping Sudanese refugees. With the bankruptcy, those profits seemed to have vanished.

Dan

I recently just put down Coupland's All families are psychotic. This was his first that I’d read. I’d previously seen his stuff around, from Gen X and Micro, as those made headlines, but then finally picked this up.

This book cracks me up. My favorite passage comes when the Ted (the father) complains about his son’s behavior growing up, "what with the neighbors showing up with half a cat in each hand".

You don’t need to hear any more of the story than that.