Congrats, Dave, on keeping that gorgeous head of hair.

Because it's not like that shit hasn't been going on for over forty years. It's hard to criticize Eggers as a person - he is generous and philanthropic to a fault - but his impact on modern literature has been excrable to put it mildly.

My much younger brother loves Eggers; I haven't tried his work - is it a generational thing? But I am deeply beholden to him for the fact of this particular book, and can't wait to read it. I know a lot of stories about Katrina, but not this one, and I applaud Mr. Eggers for returning to his journalistic roots to tell it. Great interview too. Thanks to all.

While it is still worth working to separate truth from myth in terms of violence and lawlessness immediately after Katrina, the absolute fact that over 600 people have been murdered in the city since the storm makes the effort seem sadly quaint.

I applaud Mr. Eggers for still thinking about New Orleans. The citizens of this great and glorious city are still in recovery gear. Lyn LeJeune

www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com a free download of a novel - The White Army - to benefit New Orleans' public libraries.

Any reason why Zeitoun doesn't exist as a Kindle selection at Amazon?

Stop Dave, please oh god, isn't it enough to have the most sublime and influential underground publishing conglomerate, to be spearheading literacy for children, to be the iconic cultural figure of the age, the activist google to Bono's microsoft, plesae stop for a minute and let us catch up!

It sounds to me like David Simon needs to reach out to Dave Eggers and see if he'd like to write an episode for his upcoming HBO series set in New Orleans. Just a thought.

Oedipus Schmoedipus,

"It's hard to criticize Eggers as a person - he is generous and philanthropic to a fault - but his impact on modern literature has been excrable to put it mildly."

Heavens! Surely you wouldn't criticize the impact of Dave's friend David Foster Wallace on modern literature?

In another thread, now closed, Oedipus Schmoedipus wrote: ". . . only a bad novelist like Stephen King would make shit like that up, and I'm not Stephen Fucking King."

Okay, but who do you like?

I can't remember if it was Might or Believer or some other publication, but several years ago Eggers wrote something that included an address to send him something, and a promise that if you did, he'd send you a drawing. So I did, and he did. I still have it in its envelope -- a Dave Eggers doodle of a man and a monster, or something like that, with his signature next to it. Now I'm waiting for him to become really, really famous.

>>Heavens! Surely you wouldn't criticize the impact of Dave's friend David Foster Wallace on modern literature?

Dave Eggers is a good guy doing more goodworks than most folks in his professional demographic but be very clear on this: Eggers is no DFW. Not even close.

To his credit, Eggers seems to understand his own creative limitations, and I've seen him take issue with comparisons like this, as well he should. Two writers who are acquainted and came of age professionally during roughly the same circa - beyond that, there is no real comparison.