I like Dave Eggers, and I really liked A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. But there were times in reading that book when I was like, “okay, I get it: your family is screwed up, life if a torrent of never-ending hassles and wonders and beauties and tragedies. Point established. Welcome to the world.”

Similarly, although I love the films of Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition, Revolutionary Road), I occasionally want to take him by the shoulders and say, “Sam, we all know that marriage is hard and suburbia is a wasteland and America is a cesspool of depravity beneath white picket fence veneers. Duh! Now stop banging me over the head with it and just give me more of those plastic bag moments of truth!”