The title of Dave Eggers’s newest novel comes from early in the book of Zechariah, who spoke for God near the end of the time of exile.  “The LORD was very angry with our forefathers.  Therefore tell the people: This is what the LORD Almighty says: ‘Return to me,’ declares the LORD Almighty, ‘and I will return to you . . . Where are your forefathers now? And the prophets, do they live forever? But did not my words and my decrees, which I commanded my servants the prophets, overtake your forefathers?'” (New International Version)

Religious allusion aside, this is not the kind of book that you’d find at your local Christian bookstore.  And while it hasn’t gotten the critical acclaim as Eggers’s earlier works, I can’t help but think there’s something very right and important about it.  The novel is actually a continual dialogue between an estranged young man named Thomas and a selection of strangely significant people.  It’s is not an easy book to read: the language is coarse and the situation tricky.  And while it almost repeats the tinges of absurdity present in Eggers’s The Circle, it also repeats that novel’s timeliness.  The questions Thomas asks are hard questions, just like the answers they demand are difficult: questions about promises and culture, security and force,  trust and just how did things go wrong in early 21st-century America?  In many ways, the book reminds me of the energetic force of Eggers’s earlier works (though this time without the optimism).  In the end, the book is a kind of secular call to repentance, one a little closer-to-home than we are used to, I would imagine.

It’s a difficult book to recommend, as I imagine it is beyond the comfort zone of many of us (especially if we look to fiction to take us away from the problems of the world).  It could easily be seen as a political novel, which would also make it easy for some to write off.  If you’re interested in checking it out, the folks at Longreads have posted the first chapter online.  Be warned: the language is rough.  But I think Eggers is trying to articulate something, trying to through broad a real net in which to catch something of significance to those of us around in the late summer of 2014.  You can find that first chapter here.  Should you read it, let me know what you think.