Bestselling author Dave Eggers will be stopping in Hollister Wednesday to celebrate the life and writing of his great-great grandfather T.S. Hawkins, the founder of the local hospital.
About 300 copies of Hawkins’ autobiography “Some Recollections of a Busy Life” were published in 1913, and now—more than 100 years later—about 2,000 more copies of the work have been released with a foreword written by Eggers.
Hawkins grew up in a log cabin in Missouri not far from Mark Twain. He eventually set out for California in a covered wagon and helped found the city of Hollister. The Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital is named after his granddaughter, who died of appendicitis.
As part of releasing this reprinting of the century old book, Eggers is visiting the San Benito County Historical Society. The group will hold its general meeting at 6:30 p.m. followed by a special program featuring Eggers at 7 p.m. and light refreshments at 8 p.m. Wednesday in the space at 498 Fifth St. in Hollister.
A previous trip Eggers took to Hollister put the city in the nation’s spotlight after he published a 6,000-word piece about the city in The New Yorker.
“The year I turned forty-three, I woke up one morning and thought it would be a good day to go to Hollister,” Eggers wrote. “It was the kind of trip a middle-aged man takes when his children are at a trampoline birthday party.”
Eggers, perhaps best known as author of the best-selling 2000 memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius—a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize—is a novelist and screenwriter. His works include You Shall Know Our Velocity, How We are Hungry, What is What and most recently Your Fathers, Where Are They And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?
He also co-wrote the screenplay for the 2009 film Where the Wild Things Are.
His great-great grandfather’s book with his foreword is for sale for $25 through McSweeney’s online store. For more information, go to the independent publishing company’s website: store.mcsweeneys.net/products/some-recollections-of-a-busy-life.
