Dave Eggers, the author of What is the What (2006) and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (2000), was the special guest at the Melbourne Writers Festival last month. I had the thrill of interviewing him, and even sharing a dinner with Dave and his wife Vendela Vida beforehand.

It was an amazing night with a dream interviewee. Some of the memorable moments included:

1. Helping Dave step over a red wine vomit on his way into the Town Hall, which was being cleaned up by the embarrassed friend of a too-drunk-to-be-embarrassed festival goer.
2. Eggers’s slide show of merchandise sold at his pirate supplies shop (peg legs, fake eyes, patches, planks). There are mops in the ceiling that can be lowered onto an unsuspecting parent’s head. The pirate shop is the retail front for his 826 Valencia project, which offers free writing tutorage to school-aged kids in San Francisco.
3. Hearing about his superhero and private eye shops in other cities, also part of the Valencia project.
4. Listening to stories of the southern Sudan, including photos from his trips there with Valentino Deng
5. An update on younger brother Toph’s Ultimate Frisbee career.
6. A year 11 kid asking ‘Mr Eggers’ for a job as an intern at McSweeney’s, during the Q & A..
7. Discovering that Eggers read ‘Players’ on the plane, liked it (or said he did) and for a time, contemplated writing a sporting satire himself.

Photo: Richard McLaren

The only lowlight was discovering after the interview that if I had my hand too low on the microphone, it would block the remote aerial and cause it to cut out.

For mine, What is the What is the best novel released in Australia this year. The Lost Boys of the Sudan is a lost story in this country, and most of us have little idea of the carnage unleashed in those terrible two decades. Despite the fact that casualties ran into the millions, it was the classically distant, hopeless, down-the-list story that occasionally popped up on the SBS news. Eggers’ book humanises both the bravery and the horror of that journey. Just as Sebastian Faulks’ ‘Birdsong’ takes the reader under the trenches of World War One, Valentino’s voice breathes Africa: encourages us to hear the thunder of horseback militia and the slash of machetes, to visualise the destruction of communities and the dry hardship of the Lost Boys march. It also gives insight into the trials of the refugee experience.

I wish John Howard and Kevin Andrews could take some time away from the busy task of demonising the newest and most vulnerable Australians to read about where these people have come from.

Eggers, through McSweeneys, is donating all profits from What is the What to Valentino’s chosen charities for rebuilding southern Sudan.

To hear the interview, click here.

Dave Eggers shares with me the secret of writing a good novel. "Get rid of broadband internet".