The Eyes and the Impossible was published by McSweeney’s and Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers in 2023 and won the Newbery Medal. Johannes is a free dog — not feral, not owned, but free — who lives in a large urban park (modeled on Golden Gate Park) and has appointed himself the eyes of the Bison, three ancient bison statues who sit atop a hill and cannot see for themselves. Each day, Johannes runs through the park at extraordinary speed, observing everything — the humans, the other animals, the light on the water, the movement of the trees — and reports back to the Bison with breathless, ecstatic descriptions.
The novel is written in Johannes’s voice, which is unlike anything Eggers has done before: rapturous, innocent, syntactically simple but emotionally complex. Johannes sees the world with a dog’s intensity — smell and movement and texture — but interprets it with an almost philosophical wonder. The running is joy. The seeing is purpose. The reporting is duty. And the Bison, who have seen centuries of change in the park, provide the long perspective that Johannes’s moment-to-moment experience lacks.
The plot involves a threat to the park — construction equipment, fences, a plan to develop the land — and Johannes’s efforts to protect the place that sustains his freedom. But the real subject is perception: what does it mean to be the eyes of something ancient and immobile? What is the relationship between seeing and understanding?
Collecting The Eyes and the Impossible
First edition (McSweeney’s / Knopf, 2023): Cloth binding, illustrated by Shawn Harris.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $15–$40
- Newbery Medal edition: Likely to appreciate