Books: “The Museum of Rain” by Dave Eggers
In Dave Eggers’s “The Museum of Rain,” Oisin Mahoney is about to turn 75. His niece decides to throw a family reunion/birthday party and invite family members from 44 states and 3 countries to celebrate—somewhere near Sonoma, California.
Of course when you invite families, you also invite kids. And after dancing around a bonfire the previous evening which had kept them fairly occupied, they got bored. So what do their hungover, strung-out parents ask Oisin to do? Take the kids on a hike to visit the Museum of Rain—which he built 30 years ago.
It’s one thing to be put in charge of shepherding a dozen young kids for 3.2. miles. It takes a certain kind of genius to keep them occupied crossing a California desert so they won’t run off and get eaten by a coyote. Once the kids and Oisin reach the Museum of Rain, they find a delightful surprise waiting.
I could read Eggers’s books no matter how long they take to read, but this tasty little novella can be swallowed in one gulp. And apropos of nothing, it’s also spot-on about young’uns. Because no matter how teenagers may roll their eyes and pretend to be “above it all,” after a few minutes, under the right circumstances, I have found they turn into wide-eyed kids all over again.
