Visit from the Goon Squad

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Jennifer Egan: Visit from the Goon Squad (2012, Thorndike Press)

484 pages

English language

Published 2012 by Thorndike Press.

ISBN:
978-1-59413-573-6
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4 stars (4 reviews)

Jennifer Egan's spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian …

7 editions

On time passing

4 stars

The book contains a series of short stories linked by recurring characters. While each story could stand on its own, read together they add up, tracing the lives of those characters over several decades: from teenagerhood to success, from success to failure, from failure to recovery, etc. At times it is hard to keep track of the ways in which the stories connect, but in the end it doesn't really matter: you can lose track and still enjoy the book (I did). If one was to look for an overarching theme, without a doubt it would be time passing, and the experience of realizing that time has passed. I weirdly enjoyed the last chapter, set in the future, and especially Egan's guesses about the evolution of language.

A Visit From The Goon Squad

4 stars

This started to lose me in some of the middle chapters, but it came back with a strong finish. Connected stories: some were compelling, others were clunkers. Some of the plot lines were pretty ridiculous (the general, the fake boyfriend) and/or annoying (I really disliked chapter 9). Some of the style/format choices were interesting (e.g., second-person narration in chapter 10). I think the PowerPoint presentation was my favorite chapter, although the final chapter was great also.

Subjects

  • Fiction, psychological
  • Musicians, fiction
  • Young women, fiction