Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant

Personally, We've Always Thought Hunger Involved Food Stamps, Barely Getting By, Remaining Isolated, Depressed and Lonely, Hoping to Hell That the Electricity Isn't Shut Off -- The Kind of "Hunger" Knut Hamsun Wrote About. But That's Just Us.

Dave Eggers interviewed at the Onion AV Club: "I would disagree about "isolated" or "lonely." Those are two things that I don't know very well, so I can't write about them. I think that most of the characters are people who aren't settled in what they're doing, and maybe have been uprooted in one way or another, by an event in the world or their own restlessness. Most of them are abroad and looking for something. This is what the hunger is about: whether they're hungry for some kind of affection, or something else." (via the Rake, who has a few theories of his own about this slightly different Eggers interview)