Overview

You Shall Know Our Velocity has sold over 15,000 copies in hardback. Will and Hand are burdened by $38,000 and the memory of their friend Jack. Taking a week out of their lives, they decide to travel around the world to give the money away. They can't really say why they're doing it, just that it needs to be done. Perhaps it's something to do with Jack's death - perhaps they'll find the reason later. But as their plans are frustrated, twisted and altered at every step and the natives prove far from grateful to their benefactors, Will and Hand find that the world is an infinitely bigger, more surreal and exhilarating place than they ever realised. In fact, it's somewhere to get lost in ...

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9780141013459

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Reviews

Headlong, heartsick and footsore....Frisbee sentences that sail, spin, hover, circle and come back to the reader like gifts of gravity and grace....Nobody writes better than Dave Eggers about young men who aspire to be, at the same time, authentic and sincere. -- The New York Times Book Review You Shall Know Our Velocity! is the work of a wildly talented writer... Like Kerouac's book, Eggers's could inspire a generation as much as it documents it. -- LA Weekly There's an echolet of James Joyce there and something of Saul Bellow's Chinatown bounce, but we're carried into the narrative by a fluidity of line that is Eggers's own. -- Entertainment Weekly Eggers is a wonderful writer, bold and inventive, with the technique of a magic realist. -- Salon An entertaining and profoundly original tale. -- San Francisco Chronicle Eggers 's writing really takes off -- his forte is the messy, funny tirade, stuffed with convincing pain and wry observations. -- Newsday Often rousing ...achieves a kind of anguished, profane poetry. -- Newsweek The bottom line that matters is this: Eggers has written a terrific novel, an entertaining and imaginative tale. -- The Boston Globe There are some wonderful set-pieces here, and memorable phrases tossed on the ground like unwanted pennies from the guy who runs the mint. -- The Washington Post Book World Powerful.... Eggers's strengths as a writer are real: his funny pitch-perfect dialog; the way his prose delicately captures the bumblebee blundering of Will's thoughts; ... and the stream-water clarity of his descriptions.... There is genius here.... Who is doing more, single-handedly andsingle-mindedly, for American writing? -- Time

Headlong, heartsick and footsore....Frisbee sentences that sail, spin, hover, circle and come back to the reader like gifts of gravity and grace....Nobody writes better than Dave Eggers about young men who aspire to be, at the same time, authentic and sincere. -- The New York Times Book Review <br> You Shall Know Our Velocity! is the work of a wildly talented writer... Like Kerouac's book, Eggers's could inspire a generation as much as it documents it. -- LA Weekly <br> There's an echolet of James Joyce there and something of Saul Bellow's Chinatown bounce, but we're carried into the narrative by a fluidity of line that is Eggers's own. -- Entertainment Weekly <br> Eggers is a wonderful writer, bold and inventive, with the technique of a magic realist. -- Salon <br> An entertaining and profoundly original tale. -- San Francisco Chronicle <br> Eggers 's writing really takes off -- his forte is the messy, funny tirade, stuffed with convincing pain and wry observations. -- Newsday <br> Often rousing ...achieves a kind of anguished, profane poetry. -- Newsweek <br> The bottom line that matters is this: Eggers has written a terrific novel, an entertaining and imaginative tale. -- The Boston Globe <br> There are some wonderful set-pieces here, and memorable phrases tossed on the ground like unwanted pennies from the guy who runs the mint. -- The Washington Post Book World <br> Powerful.... Eggers's strengths as a writer are real: his funny pitch-perfect dialog; the way his prose delicately captures the bumblebee blundering of Will's thoughts; ... and the stream-water clarity of his descriptions.... There is genius here.... Who is doing more, single-handedly andsingle-mindedly, for American writing? -- Time

Headlong, heartsick and footsore....Frisbee sentences that sail, spin, hover, circle and come back to the reader like gifts of gravity and grace....Nobody writes better than Dave Eggers about young men who aspire to be, at the same time, authentic and sincere. -- The New York Times Book Review You Shall Know Our Velocity! is the work of a wildly talented writer... Like Kerouac's book, Eggers's could inspire a generation as much as it documents it. -- LA Weekly There's an echolet of James Joyce there and something of Saul Bellow's Chinatown bounce, but we're carried into the narrative by a fluidity of line that is Eggers's own. -- Entertainment Weekly Eggers is a wonderful writer, bold and inventive, with the technique of a magic realist. -- Salon An entertaining and profoundly original tale. -- San Francisco Chronicle Eggers 's writing really takes off -- his forte is the messy, funny tirade, stuffed with convincing pain and wry observations. -- Newsday Often rousing ...achieves a kind of anguished, profane poetry. -- Newsweek The bottom line that matters is this: Eggers has written a terrific novel, an entertaining and imaginative tale. -- The Boston Globe There are some wonderful set-pieces here, and memorable phrases tossed on the ground like unwanted pennies from the guy who runs the mint. -- The Washington Post Book World Powerful.... Eggers's strengths as a writer are real: his funny pitch-perfect dialog; the way his prose delicately captures the bumblebee blundering of Will's thoughts; ... and the stream-water clarity of his descriptions.... There is genius here.... Who is doing more, single-handedly andsingle-mindedly, for American writing? -- Time

Back in 1999, an exciting new young writer stormed up the American bestseller lists with his memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Dave Eggers quickly became established as a cult literary figure, with all the attendant characteristics - quirkiness, a desire for solitude and, naturally, a marked reluctance to give interviews. His first foray into fiction recounts the adventures of two young American boys who decide to travel round the world in a week, giving away large sums of money on the way. Part road story, part philosophical analysis of the minefield that is charitable giving, the result is highly original and moves at an almost manic pace as Will and Hand frantically try to achieve their ambition of traversing the globe in a week. The catalyst for all this frenetic energy is the death of their childhood friend, Jack, in a car accident. Will has also come into a vast sum of money from modelling for a light-bulb company, and overcome by grief and guilt at Jack's death, he resolves to give all his effortlessly earned income away to the needy. Will and Hand abandon their early attempts at an itinerary as time and again they are frustrated by aeroplane timetables and visa requirements, eventually beginning their madcap tour in Senegal before moving on to Morocco and Estonia. Are the two boys embarking on this mission of mercy to salve their own consciences? Will spends much of the book inside his own head, reliving the horrors of Jack's death and his own subsequent beating at the hands of a gang of thugs as well as wrestling with the problem of how to decide who should receive his money. The arbitrariness of his choices seems to depend on the personality of the recipient - there are fistfuls of cash for Denis who supports the Chicago Bulls but nothing for his obnoxious brother Pierre. Hand lives up to his name as he turns out to be the practical one of the pair, more in tune with his physical needs for sleep, food, warmth and sex, and more pragmatic about the way they are going to actually hand over their largesse, whether by taping it to a Senegalese donkey, handing it to prostitutes or burying it in an Estonian forest. But in the end it is up to the reader to take what he wants from Eggers's multi-layered novel. Is it ultimately about Eggers himself and the way he has dealt with his unexpected celebrity, or is it simply the tale of two confused, unhappy youngsters trying to do good in a world where being charitable is not as easy as at first appears? (Kirkus UK)

Author Information

Dave Eggers is the author of twelve books, including The Monk of Mokha; 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. He is the founder of McSweeney's and the cofounder of 826 Valencia, a youth writing center that has inspired similar programs around the world, and of ScholarMatch, which connects donors with students to make college accessible. He is the winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and is the cofounder of Voice of Witness, a book series that illuminates human rights crises through oral history. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letter. His work has been translated into forty- two languages. www.Internationalcongressofyouthvoices.org www.826valencia.org www.scholarmatch.org www.voiceofwitness.org www.valentinoachakdeng.org www.mcsweeneys.net www.daveeggers.net

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