You Shall Know Our Velocity

You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers. McSweeney's, 371 pp., $22.00. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Eggers's first book, began with pages upon pages of diagrams, apologies, diversions, disclaimers, wacky asides, and laments for the state of the memoir in general and for Eggers's insecurities about properly writing a memoir specifically.

This, Eggers's first novel, avoids that throat-clearing route altogether by printing page one on the cover and saving publication information and copyright notices and acknowledgments for the last page of the book, in tiny print. It is a gimmicky approach, perhaps intended to fool the reader into thinking Eggers is anything but a serious novelist, well in control of his craft. The plot revolves around two young men who are trying to circle the world in a week to give away money that one of them received in an unexpected windfall. But really, the plot is an excuse to do a character study of two Midwestern boys who are trying to deal with the death of a friend. There is a philosophical component at work as well. The characters, Will and Hand, are, respectively, cerebral and impulsive, and Eggers contructs a convincing book-length dialogue between them that works on multiple levels. You Shall Know Our Velocity is a minor work, but it is a satisfying and meritous effort. Despite the global landscape, this is a small, personal story, and Eggers tells it well. One hopes that the writer might choose a more ambitious subject for his next novel.

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