I read Heartbreaking a long-long time ago and What is the What shortly after it came out. Both books I liked at that time, but later on I didn't care too much for Dave Eggers. Despite the 'idealism' (writing a book about refugees in Sudan is pretty nice for instance), for me The Believer magazine and that kind of stuff just doesn't really on political reality enough. Can't really put it into words, I suppose I don't want just engagement and philantropy, but fundamental structural change, and then an merely intelligent interestng stuff doesn't do it for me (I prefer Jacobin mag to the believer). 
 So I needed a book to read and when I picked it up I knew it would be good, but that I would keep this nagging feeling. But I actually really liked it. It's not brilliant, it feels very much 'constructed' and Adam Clay doesn't become a character with whom you intensely emphatize. But it is funny, extremely easy to read (the prose is extremely sparse), and it's all about the downfall of the American businessman. Very much a post-crisis novel and on the effects of globalization. Adam Clay is boring and shallow as fuck, the most exciting part of his life being when he took a couple of days off on a pre-arrenged tour on the amazon where he met his ex-wife. But that seems a perfect caricature for the succesful American businessman.