Looking for a Scene from "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius"

April 7, 2015 9:56 AM

I'm looking for a specific scene from Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. In it, the main character is in a bar, talking about wasted potential. The characters are discussing all of the things they could accomplish if they weren't in the bar. I've been trying to locate the scene within the book, but haven't been able to - if you know where it is, could you provide a quote or page number?
posted by ersherr to Media & Arts (2 answers total)

This sounds vaguely like it might fit:

And you left your brother to go where?
Out. To bars.
To bars. And what was at these bars?
Friends, people, beer.
Beer.
There was a special, I think.
A special.
On the beer. Certain kinds.
Oh, you know, I just wanted to be out. I didn’t care much what we did. You have to understand that at that point I was getting out once a week, tops, maybe once every ten days....
posted by jabes at 10:50 AM on April 7, 2015

Could you be thinking instead of Tim Kreider's We Learn Nothing. Essays and Cartoons.? A similar sensibility to Eggers' and here's from essay "You Can't Stay Here."

But then, wasting time wasn’t exactly an unforeseen side effect of drinking; it was part of the fun. Of course it was fun; if drinking weren’t so much fun it wouldn’t be such a widespread and terrible problem. While responsible people were working their way up their respective professional ladders, my friends and I were spending whole days drinking bottomless pitchers of mimosas or Bloody Marys and laughing till we wept on decks overlooking the Chesapeake Bay.
posted by mono blanco at 6:18 PM on April 7, 2015