One Man Zeitgeist

Acknowledgments                                 
Introduction                                     
 
1. Finding the "right reader"                         
2."Just Like You": Fame, Narcissism and the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius             
3. Mistakes He Knew He Was Making                     
4. A Publisher's Progress: You Shall Know Our Velocity and the McSweeney's Publishing Model         
5. The Optimist

Notes                     
Works Cited   
Index

"A gorgeous three-dimensional map of Dave Eggers' career to date. Hamilton's fun-to-read, lively prose sketches Eggers' uneasy relation to the publishing and publicity industries, his paradoxical philanthropy, and his bold experiments with voice. Here and there, she tactfully introduces illuminating snippets from cultural critics, but the real highlights of this analysis are the many original provocations that pepper One Man Zeitgeist. In Hamilton's capable hands, Eggers' career gives readers a window into the literary preoccupations of the rapidly graying Generation X. Throughout her discussion, Hamilton smartly diagnoses the prospects of that much-maligned generation's quest for an alternative media culture."-- Caren Irr, Associate Professor of English and American Literature, Brandeis University, USA
"Caroline Hamilton is absolutely right when she says that, in the contemporary world, 'it is not books but authors who are judged by their covers.' This is true of no one more than Dave Eggers, one of the most significant figures on the recent U.S. literary scene, a figure alternately adored and reviled both because of his own writing and as a result of his profound influence as an editor and publisher. Poised at the nexus of a number of significant fields, including cultural theory, media studies, the history of publishing, and contemporary literary criticism, One Man Zeitgeist makes a strikingly original contribution to existing scholarship, not only in its local focus - the first full-length, multi-dimensional study of the work and the constructed persona of Dave Eggers - but also in its broader implications for studies of the autobiography, of the place of literature in the contemporary media landscape, and of the role of the author in the culture of celebrity." -- Kathleen Fitzpatrick, Associate Professor of English and Media Studies, Pomona College, USA.