8/14/2019 Enjoy Your Millions: A Strange Encounter with Dave Eggers by Tim W. Brown

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Enjoy Your Millions: A Strange Encounter With Dave Eggers

By Tim W. Brown

Let me share with you my experience meeting Dave Eggers last night (3/8/07). My membership

in the National Book Critics Circle allowed me to introduce myself to the punk-ass poseur at thereception following the NBCC Awards held at The New School in New York City.

Thankfully, the NBCC membership voted for someone else, Kiran Desai, as winner of the fictioncategory in which Eggers was nominated, so I don't have to question my membership in the

organization, although I wonder why he was nominated in the first place. My vote in the

category, for Richard Ford, went for naught. As it happens I met Ford in the men's room during

the ceremony and found him to be the most pleasant, down-to-earth person you'd ever care tomeet, a stark contrast to Eggers.

The reception was a packed affair with decent food and free- flowing wine. As you'd expect,

Eggers spent the entire time responding to his fans, who, one after the other, introducedthemselves and sucked up. They followed him around the room like moons revolving around a

gas giant.

I'm rather shy in public, so in these situations I'm not particularly aggressive when attempting to

speak with celebrity authors; I tend to wait patiently and make my move when there is a lull in

conversation. I followed this script with Eggers. I stood patiently by his side, and, when hefinished with someone, I started to speak.

Yet, despite it being entirely clear that I wished to talk to him, he turned his back on me and began to walk away. "Excuse me," I called after him. Having got his attention, I slipped him my

 business card to aid in identifying myself, and I asked him if he would speak on the recordtonight, for I had a question or two to ask him.

He uttered some lame excuse that he was concerned about the Sudanese people accompanying

him, and he wished to check on them. I thought, okay, no problem, I'll follow up with him againwhen he's available. He proceeded to speak with about five people until I finally went over and

said into his ear, "I think that's them over by the bar." It was pretty obvious who the Sudanese

were considering they were, with two exceptions, the only black people in the room. After 

speaking with another two or three people, he finally caught up with his Sudanese friends,and they headed toward the exit.

 Now, Eggers didn't know me from Adam. The room was filled with book reviewers from thelargest newspapers and magazines in the U.S. and a number of trade publishing people with

whom I assume he'd wish to be on good terms. For all he knew I could have been an important

 person in publishing, though I confess my NBCC membership is based on reviewing small andindependent press books, making me pretty low-status in that crowd. This fact doesn't excuse his

rudeness, however.

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8/14/2019 Enjoy Your Millions: A Strange Encounter with Dave Eggers by Tim W. Brown

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I hovered around the elevator taking note that Eggers was avoiding me. When it was clear he and

his entourage were about to leave, I pushed forward to ask the first of my questions, which was,

"What are your impressions of the Underground Literary Alliance?"

He was taken aback, no doubt not expecting such a question from the legions of adoring critics

and fans at the event. Greatly flustered, he was about to say, I sensed, that he'd never heard of ULA, but he thought better of it, knowing it would have been a lie.

Instead, he answered, "This is a party," implying that such a question was out-of-bounds andinappropriate -- at an event where dozens of journalists and at least two lit bloggers I recognized

were busy working the room seeking quotes from

other authors in attendance.

Whisked away by his wife, Vendela Vida, who shared his sudden deer-in-the-headlights look, he

hastily departed. "Enjoy your millions," I said after them; I didn’t feel comfortable challenging

him further and making a bigger scene (damn my shyness). And there went my chance to get

Dave Eggers to say on the recordwhat his opinions were about ULA.

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