A book that redefines both family and narrative for the twenty-first century. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is the moving memoir of a college senior who, in the space of five weeks, loses both of his parents to cancer and inherits his eight-year-old brother. Here is an exhilarating debut that manages to be simultaneously hilarious and wildly inventive as well as a deeply heartfelt story of the love that holds a family together.

The author tells the story of her violent rape at the age of eighteen, her accidental sighting of her attacker six months later, the resulting trial and conviction of the man, and the trauma she suffered for years afterwards.