McSweeney’s, 2006, 475 pp., $26,
www.mcsweeneys.net
Eggers achieved critical acclaim and
widespread fame with his stunning 2000 memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of
Staggering Genius. Now the literary voice of a generation is back with
this gripping, true-life tale of a Lost Boy of Sudan.
The Lost Boys were an estimated
17,000 young boys displaced by civil war in Sudan in the late 1980s. Many
survived a journey through Ethiopia and refugee camps in Kenya.
Valentino Achak Deng, the subject of
Eggers’ book, was relocated to Atlanta, where he studies at a community college
(when he’s not being robbed or harassed by petty criminals).
Beautifully written and fast-paced, What
Is the What transports readers into a world of chaos, conflict, and human
triumph.
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Review by: Pat
Angelo, freelance writer, Denver, Colorado.