A Visit from the Goon Squad

288 pages

English language

Published June 3, 2010

ISBN:
978-0-307-59283-5
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Goodreads:
7331435

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4 stars (9 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 Kenya.

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 …

11 editions

Review of 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book had me on board just a couple of chapters in, knowing it wasn't the kind of book that was going to end in any conventional way. Each chapter is told from the point of view of a different character who recur only as side characters in the other chapters. It's as though every character is a mysterious talisman with obscure powers as viewed by all the others. Through all the chapters the passage of time, lurching from distant past to barely recognizable future, makes its inexorable mark magnifying some events while fading others so that only one person can half remember them. Reviews talk about the slide deck chapter, but that is just one more chunk of artifice, differing from the other chapters only in degree. There have been other novels with interlocking sets of characters and told from different viewpoints but this one is done in a …

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.

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2 stars
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5 stars