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...Eggers met and became friends. Their conversations together are the basis for Eggers' remarkable new novel What Is the What (McSweeney's Books; available Oct. 25), which takes the form of a fictionalized version of Deng's life story. In this exclusive excerpt, Deng silently addresses a young boy who is helping to burglarize his apartment. How do you make another human understand that you were a child of war? "Picture your neighborhood," Deng thinks, "and now see the women screaming, the babies tossed into wells. Watch your brothers explode. I want you there with me." Our excerpt follows...
...boy slowly rouses himself and jogs over to the kitchen to answer it. I can't hear much of the conversation, but I do hear him say, "You said ten," followed by a series of similar protestations...
...call is over in less than a minute and now I must try again to reason with the boy. Perhaps he is comfortable enough with me now, with my unmoving presence, that he will not fear my voice. And it's evident that he is upset with his accomplices. Perhaps I can forge an alliance, for I still harbor hope that he'll see that he and I are more alike than are he and those who have placed him here...
...nods to me, then takes his foot and gently steps on my mouth, pushing the tape back into place. To have this boy pushing my mouth closed with his foot - it is too much to accept...
...bedspread from my room is carefully spread over the couch cushions until it forms a tent over me, and this is too much. Michael, I have little patience left for you. I am finished with you, and wish you could have seen what I saw. Be grateful, TV Boy. Have respect. Have you seen the beginning of a war? Picture your neighborhood, and now see the women screaming, the babies tossed into wells. Watch your brothers explode. I want you there with...