Accident by Dave Eggers
David Egger is an American editor, writer, and publisher whose parents were John K. Eggers and Heidi McSweeney Eggers. His father was an attorney while his mother was a teacher. While he was still a child, his family moved from Boston to a suburb neighboring Chicago called Lake Forest, where he later joined high school. Later on, Egger joined the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he pursued a degree in journalism only to drop out of school following his parents’ death. The death of his parents opened a new chapter in his life since he had to raise his young brother and seek a way of fending for their needs.
Egger later moved with his younger brother and girlfriend to Berkeley, California, where they lived with his sister before moving to another part of the town. His brother, Christopher, enrolled in a private school while Egger did freelance graphic design and temp work for a local newspaper. In 2001, his sister Beth died after committing suicide (Merritt). Egger currently lives in San Francisco Bay Area, together with his wife Vendela Vida and their two children.
His short story Accident seems to be connected to the incidences that have happened in his life. In the story, there are three teens in a 2005 Camaro, and one of them is a driver. There is another person who Egger addresses as “you” who is in another car and has caused an accident that has left the teens’ car wrecked. Luckily, none of the teens gets injured in the accident. The three teens seem to represent his members of the family who have died for different reasons. The three people are his father, who succumbed to brain and lung cancer in 1991, and his mother, who died of stomach cancer in 1992 (Merritt). The next person to die is his sister Beth, who committed suicide. Unlike the father and the mother, Beth’s death was unavoidable if she had talked to someone before committing suicide. Her act of committing suicide highlights poor decision making, as seen in the short story where the “you” had pulled his/her car in an intersection and causes an accident.
Additionally, the aspect of Egger moving on with life together with his younger brother Christopher, and his girlfriend Kirsten connects his life experience with that of the short story. Notably, both Egger, Kirsten, and Christopher are young people who need the guidance of parents or older people. However, they lack them because Egger’s parents and sister are dead, and his brother is busy; thus, they have to find a way to cope with their lives. Lack of someone to guide them makes them vulnerable to poor decisions, which may have severe consequences. Similarly, it is risky for teens to be in the car alone because they may make poor decisions on the road, which may lead to an accident (Eggers). Perhaps the accident in the short story occurred because the driver failed to concentrate while driving thus could not avoid the car on the intersection in time.
Overall, David Egger works as a writer, publisher, and an editor. Additionally, the deaths of his parents made him to abruptly end his university education to take care of Christopher, his younger brother. His short story Accident has similarities with his life experiences in ways such as having lost his father, mother, and sister, and the wrecked car having three teens. Lastly, his sister’s decision to commit suicide is similar to that of the person who causes an accident by pulling his/her car into an intersection.
Works Cited
Eggers, David. Accident. 2005
Merritt, Stephanie. “The Agony and the Irony.” The Guardian, 22 Feb. 2018, www.theguardian.com/books/2000/may/14/biography.features. Accessed 8 Apr. 2020.
