Excerpt from Contrapposto by Dave Eggers, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Excerpt
Contrapposto

The next day, at eleven, Cricket was at home when he saw a boxy compact car, painted a burnt orange, pull into the driveway. His mother was out front getting the newspaper when Olympia swept out of her car and strode fear¬lessly toward her, hand extended. Olympia was wearing a loose sunflower-yellow blouse and a flowing white skirt. Cricket stepped outside to intervene but wasn't quick enough.

"I'm Olympia," she said, and shook his mother's hand firmly. "We've met. At the Romanians'. I took piano."

No friend of his had ever introduced themselves this way, so directly, so professionally.

"That was you!" his mother said. "Now look at you. You're a woman!"

Olympia smiled, clearly accustomed to comments like this.

"We're heading to the track," Olympia said. "Want to come?"

There were a hundred responses possible, most of them shocked or dis¬pleased, but his mother laughed. She was disarmed, rendered mute. "The track? Like the racetrack?"

"Don't worry, I never gamble," Olympia said. "It's just to watch the colors in motion. You should come! It's such a nice day."

His mother was struck dumb again. She looked to the front porch, where she found Cricket; he had no idea what to do or say. "Well," she finally said. "That is a tempting invitation, Olympia. You guys go. Have fun."

Olympia tapped the roof of her car and Cricket got in.

"When will you be home?" his mother asked. She was frozen in the driveway.

"Last race is at three forty-five," Olympia said from the driver's-side win¬dow, while backing away, "so an hour after that? But we might have dinner. Do you need him at a certain hour?"

Cricket's mom shook her head and waved her hand listlessly.

"You enjoy the day now!" Olympia said. She left the driveway and was soon on the highway. The car smelled of spicy deodorant and watermelon gum and something old and stale— a stain somewhere that hadn't come out. Her car was a stick shift, and Olympia shoved the wood-topped shifter around with authority, occasionally brushing Cricket's knee when she did.

"It's so hot today, right?" Olympia said, and took the hem of her skirt and flapped it like a sparrow's wing. He caught a flash of her pink, freckled calf.

"Are we really going to the track?" he asked.

"You've never been?" Olympia asked. "I like your mom. She seems sweet. You got your braces off. Didn't you have braces? Have you been doing this?" She ran her tongue over the bright surface of her teeth.

He told her about Dr. Talmadge as the landscape flew by.

"What a dick," she said. "You want me to kill him for you?"

The day was bright and warm and he stole glances at her when she spoke, trying to find any part of her that resembled the girl he'd known before.

"You look different," she said. "Your hair was longer before. And you were this tiny little kid. You're almost grown up. Will you keep growing?" He felt obligated to say yes.

"I can't believe I'm back in Indiana," she said, looking at the fallow fields and strip malls. "It's so fucking flat. Sorry we stopped writing letters. I have all yours in a box back in Connecticut. Do you have mine?"

"I do," he said.

"You're a romantic," she said. "I guess I knew that."

"You look different but the same," she said. "A lot like your mom. You have an innocent face. Have you heard of the 'innocent eye'?"

"No."

"Well you need that!" she said, and laughed a thundering laugh. "That's the whole thing, right? To be able to see everything, like, anew?"

They arrived at a vast white structure, ornate like a wedding cake.

"This is it." Olympia put the car in neutral and coasted into the lot with¬out slowing, sending a couple scurrying. She threw her bag, crocheted and enormous, over her shoulder and locked the doors.

"Sorry!" she sang to the couple. "Ready?" she asked Cricket.

Excerpted from Contrapposto by Dave Eggers. Copyright © 2026 by Dave Eggers. Excerpted by permission of Knopf. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.