You Shall Know Our Velocity! was published by McSweeney’s in 2002, Eggers’s first work of fiction. Will and Hand, two friends from a small Wisconsin town, decide to circle the globe in a week, giving away $32,000 that Will received from a legal settlement after his image was used without permission in a lighting company advertisement. They fly to Senegal, Morocco, Estonia, Latvia, and Mongolia, handing out cash to strangers with increasing desperation.
The premise sounds like a comedy, and there are comic moments, but the engine of the book is grief: their friend Jack has recently died, and the trip is Will’s attempt to convert money (which he considers tainted) into something meaningful through sheer velocity and generosity. The problem — which the novel dramatizes rather than solves — is that the generosity is as self-serving as it is genuine. Will and Hand are not distributing aid; they are trying to feel something other than loss, and the recipients of their money are instruments of that project.
Eggers published the novel through his own press, which allowed him to control the physical design — the first edition is a distinctive object, with hand-drawn maps and a cover printed on heavy stock. The McSweeney’s edition was followed by a Vintage paperback that included an additional section, “Addendum by Hand,” which provides an alternative perspective on the events.
Collecting You Shall Know Our Velocity!
First edition (McSweeney’s, San Francisco, 2002): Hardcover with distinctive design.
Market values:
- First edition, fine/fine: $30–$80
- Very good/very good: $10–$30
- Signed: $50–$120