They will fly away on a weeklong Bruise Brothers pilgrimage to Senegal, Morocco and the Baltics. But Jack, who had always played by the rules, a solid citizen so uncool that he ''couldn't move with any kind of fluidity or fury, couldn't push his socks down the right way'' - this Jack, too square to exceed the speed limit, is all of a sudden roadkill.Īnd just as suddenly, Will and Hand are Jumping People, with a mountain of grief to lift from the page. And not Hand, ''a huge gaping always-moving mouth,'' by habit confrontational, the sort of Net-surfing autodidact who has to tell you that Spinoza was autistic. But then: ''YOUNG MAN DIES WHEN SEMI SPEEDS OVER CAR.'' Not Will, whose heartbeat is irregular, whose mind hovers and churns ''on hummingbird wings'' and who is full of ''chaos'' because his dad deserted him. Buddies since their Milwaukee childhood, former college classmates, 27-year-old semi-slackers with casual jobs in construction or casinos, if they miss a larger purpose, they aren't yet ready to go looking for it. Until the violent death of their best friend Jack, Will and Hand have been basically stationary. And then back again, as if nothing had happened except in some parallel universe. Thus a novel in frantic motion, one step ahead of the Furies, on its way from Chicago, Dakar, Marrakesh and Riga to pratfall, breakdown, crackup and accountability. And on the cliff above their abandoned village, they left a message: ''YOU SHALL KNOW OUR VELOCITY!''
These calisthenics would come in handy later on, when the conquistadors besieged them. To get such a weight off the ground, they hopped around with their mouths wide open, eating a lot of air. They also believed that they carried within them the dense souls of their noisy ancestors, a chorus as heavy as a mountain. The Jumping People worshiped birds and longed to fly. Raymond claims to have descended from a tribe of precolonial Chileans called the Jumping People. Raymond, for instance, is crucial only because he explains the title of the book.
On this run they will be instructed by various walk-on wiseguys, some more important than others.
IN Dave Eggers's headlong, heartsick and footsore first novel, Will and Hand are on the run - like the Last of the Mohicans and the motormouth Beats, or Mason & Dixon and Thelma & Louise.
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