The Road to Wellville/The Mysteries of Pittsburgh/A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

The Road to Wellville - T.C. Boyle (1993)

T.C. Boyle's The Road to Wellville is a fictional account of a health craze fronted by Dr. John Harvey Kellogg that took place in the early 1900s in Battle Creek. There are three main, fairly complex storylines that run throughout the book: a married couple living at Kellogg's sanitarium and the conflicts that arise between them, a young man from California and his struggles to make it in the breakfast food industry, and Kellogg and his efforts to keep the sanitarium up and running as well as to keep his drunken, idiot son out of the mix. All of this sounds kind of serious and boring, I guess, but the specific events that occur in The Road to Wellville are hilarious. This historical, slightly dark comedy is clever, easy to follow and very fun.

The Mysteries of Pittsburgh - Michael Chabon (1988)

I believe this is Chabon's first novel, and if that's true, it's a really great debut, and I'm blown away by how good of a writer he was so early on. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh is an awkward, funny, complex and sad coming of age story. A very enjoyable read about a young man just of college and his struggles with friendship, sexuality, his gangster father (which sounds stupid and dramatic, but is an interesting little subplot) and himself.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers (2000)

I tried reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius back in the summer of 2006, and gave up pretty quickly. I just recently decided to give it another shot. There were moments where what I love about Eggers' writing really came through, and those moments were brilliant. The caricatures of the people in his life that he presented in this book were amazing, especially his younger brother Toph. I also was really touched by Eggers' portrayal of his parents, his relationship with them, and their deaths. But, there was plenty to be annoyed by and frustrated with here, too, mainly Eggers' apparent obsession with himself. Overall, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius was often times beautiful and sometimes difficult and incredibly irritating.