Night Waves - 14/10/2009

Matthew Sweet talks to Dave Eggers about his novel The Wild Things, focusing on the confusions facing a boy growing up. It's based loosely on the story Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and the Hollywood screenplay Eggers has co-written with Spike Jonze. When Dave Eggers was 21 and living in Lake Forest, Illinois, both his parents died of cancer five weeks apart, leaving Eggers to raise his eight-year-old brother Christopher. His memoir, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize in 2000. Eggers went on to publish his first novel, You Shall Know Our Velocity, in 2002. He also wrote the screenplay for Sam Mendes' recent film Away We Go.