You Shall Know Our Velocity [Paperback]

Dave Eggers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2008

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!

Editorial Reviews

Review

"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

About the Author

Dave Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's and the author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. He lives in California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK) (March 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141013451
• ISBN-13: 978-0141013459
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,181,662 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dave Eggers is the author of six previous books, including "Zeitoun," a nonfiction account a Syrian-American immigrant and his extraordinary experience during Hurricane Katrina and "What Is the What," a finalist for the 2006 National Book Critics Circle Award. That book, about Valentino Achak Deng, a survivor of the civil war in southern Sudan, gave birth to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, run by Mr. Deng and dedicated to building secondary schools in southern Sudan. Eggers is the founder and editor of McSweeney's, an independent publishing house based in San Francisco that produces a quarterly journal, a monthly magazine ("The Believer"), and "Wholphin," a quarterly DVD of short films and documentaries. In 2002, with Nínive Calegari he co-founded 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center for youth in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local communities have since opened sister 826 centers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Brooklyn, Ann Arbor, Seattle, and Boston. In 2004, Eggers taught at the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, and there, with Dr. Lola Vollen, he co-founded Voice of Witness, a series of books using oral history to illuminate human rights crises around the world. A native of Chicago, Eggers graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in journalism. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife and two children.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A disturbing road-trip through Africa, Europe and the human soul, August 14, 2005

By 

Dale Taylor (South Africa) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: You Shall Know Our Velocity (Paperback)

I happened across this novel at a book sale at a local retailer here in Cape Town and was drawn to it by the cover image - 2 people, half-naked, in free-fall. I'm not sure how I knew it, but the two people free-falling don't appear to be in any distress. Anyway, mindful of the old adage of not judging a book by its cover, I bought the novel.

I was not disappointed. I was bemused, though; bewildered, definitely. I was also not quite comfortable with it for a long way, partly because I couldn't really tell which way it was heading, and partly because it is fairly brutal. It was definitely not put-downable, though; a credit to the author's capabilities.

The story is that of Will and Justin - called "Hand" - and their frenetic trip to get rid of some money that Will has that he doesn't want. It all occurs in the aftermath of the death of their best friend, Jack, in a freak truck accident. Jack's death appears to have occurred fairly recently, and there has been another recent incident along the way where Will has been badly beaten up, which he blames Hand for. This recurring undertone simmers throughout the novel as Will is still black and blue on this frantic trip through Senegal, Morocco, Estonia and Latvia en route to Egypt, Greenland, Madagascar or Mongolia, depending on which flights are available. You'll have to read the novel to find out what I mean.

The novel is raucously funny and touchingly poignant, often in the same paragraph as it recounts the tale of Will and Hand currently aged 26, and also Will and Hand when they were just kids, through fairly disrupted childhoods. While Will is the narrator, it is as much the story of Hand as that of Will, and contains remarkable insights nutshelling the human condition, as much in their deeds as in their thoughts. Both guys certainly seem to exist with a heavy measure of aftertaste, lives initially filled with promise which have petered out into a holding pattern of day-to-day drudgery and unfulfilled potential.

The author manages to create an amazing sense of utter desperation in both characters - even though the trip is a spur of the moment decision, it becomes so monumental that one wonders in the end if they could have survived without it. The novel is simultaneously disturbing and wonderous, containing more twists and turns than a roller coaster. If anyone out there can even begin to guess what will happen as the novel progresses, fair play to them - I certainly could not.

All in all, I ripped through the book in about 3 days, thoroughly enjoying every distressing page of it. The author's style is unique and the two characters are unexpectedly fresh. While the story itself is definitely well within the realm of extremely black comedy, the insights contained within and discovered by the reader are uplifting.

3.0 out of 5 stars I missed the point of this one, April 7, 2010

By 

C. Scholz - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: You Shall Know Our Velocity (Paperback)

I think I read this book to fast. Should have been more in the moment. Language and descriptions are excellent. Just had a hard time getting into the spirit of the narrative. I love the other books I have read written by David Eggers. This one wasn't my favorite.