Jennifer Egan’s
Pulitzer Prize winning A Visit from the
Goon Squad (2010) is a wonderfully quirky novel comprised of thirteen interlinked
short stories. The stories in the book dart about around the globe - New York,
Naples, Africa, San Francisco and beyond – and cover about 40 years in the
lives of various characters.
A character
that is marginal in one chapter becomes the protagonist in the next. Just when
you are left wondering, “I wonder what happened to…” you find a passing
reference to someone at a different point in his or her life. It does take a
bit of getting use to and perhaps it is best to just read each chapter as an
individual story, then step back when you are finished and marvel at the whole.
You begin by reading
about 30-something kleptomaniac Sasha on a date in New York, and then you don’t
see her again until you read a story about teenaged Sasha in Naples. Later you
learn more about Sasha through reading the PowerPoint journal of her
twelve-year-old daughter Ally. In between you meet: Sasha’s boss, music
producer Bennie Salazar struggling to make a connection with his son;
philanderer Lou Kline and his string of broken lovers and children; Bennie’s
wife Stephanie who hides her friendships; could-have-been actress Kitty Jackson; tragic Rob, Sasha’s close college friend; and many
more.
There is great
humour in the book and I often found myself laughing out loud. My favourite
story features PR Queen La Doll who is attempting a comeback after she accidentally
maimed the who’s-who of New York and was knocked from her throne. She then
takes on an unlikely client, a genocidal dictator, in an attempt to reinvent
his image and revive her career.
The goon squad is
a reference to the thug that is time – it creeps up on us and whacks us when we
aren’t looking. All the characters have issues with time – time passing them
by, lost youth, aging, and the sense of what could have been had another path
been taken. The other central theme is
music and the interconnection characters have with the industry makes for a
fascinating soundtrack. In particular, I loved the obsession Lincoln has with
great rock and roll pauses.
After reading
the book I went online and found that many people had tried to draw flow charts
connecting the characters and timelines to put the novel in chronological
order. Just the kind of nerdiness that I
would have pursued, had others not done it for me!
Egan is a
wonderful writer with a keen eye for human nature. Whether she is writing in first,
second and third person narrative, she is able to get under the skin of her
characters and bring them to life. Her
writing is fun and clever, but never arrogant. I can see why Egan won the 2011
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Well deserved for this brilliant book. Highly
recommended.