Dave Eggers is one of the most transparent writers working today. His bestselling debut, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, was capable not only of searing honesty about his remarkable early life, but also provided a window into the fits and starts of the writing process. In this era of slick marketing, where books can come as carefully packaged as electronic gear, it is rare to find a writer so willing to demonstrate that the act of writing is riddled with insecurity and confusion.

His new collection continues in this open vein. Although it contains a handful of fully fledged, carefully crafted stories, there is also much that is fragmentary and self-conscious. Notes for a Story of a Man Who Will Not Die Alone is just that: an outline of a short story about a man who tries to arrange for a crowd to be present at his demise. “Around 8,000 words,” it opens. “Quick-moving. Simple language. No descriptions of rooms or furnishings.”

Several other pieces are nothing more than fragments. Most strikingly, there is There Are Some Things He Should Keep to Himself, which consists of five blank pages.

Although these pieces are occasionally quite brilliant, they probably worked better in the small magazines, newspapers and websites where most were first published. Within the confines of a book, they come across as a bit too calculated — especially those blank pages. Much more effective are the half-dozen complete short stories. In these, Eggers taps into a tradition of American minimalist prose that originated with Ernest Hemingway’s early stories and came to a terse fruition in the work of Raymond Carver. The collection’s best offering, Quiet, is a marvel of economical prose, its harsh, alien setting a perfect backdrop to the narrator’s tempestuous, self-destructive emotions. It leaves you scratching your head in wonder as to why anyone with a talent such as Eggers’s would feel the need to leave pages blank.

HOW WE ARE HUNGRY by Dave Eggers

H Hamilton £12.99 pp224

Available at the Sunday Times Books First price of £10.39 plus £2.25 p&p on 0870 165 8585

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