‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ by Jennifer Egan (winner of the Pulitzer prize for fiction 2011) was recommended in a comment on my post ‘Why People don’t read short stories’ and I then had the good fortune to swap books with a book buddy and was delighted to discover that this was the treasure she was trading.
There has been much discussion already about the title; what exactly is a ‘goon’ and is this even a relevant question? I decided not to search for an answer and instead to come up with my instinctive response at the end, I prefer to hazard a wild guess although the cynic in me did wonder if it wasn’t just a gimmick.
A novel or a set of stories, each chapter is separate yet connected by the barest of threads to the previous, sufficient to surmise a pattern, although like many creations, the complete picture does not become clear until the work is finished. It reminds me of six degrees of separation, that we are all connected and that even when we are, there are gaps in history’s, we only ever know part of a person’s story.
It is a testament to Egan’s writing and one of its strengths that her book reads like a novel because we are immediately drawn into and engaged within the world of her well cast characters, mentioned briefly in one chapter, discovered in depth in the next, it is not like starting a completely different story, more like starting an abstract jigsaw puzzle in opposite corners knowing that eventually the pieces should add up. We read and make the connections, searching for them, perhaps even creating them ourselves. I wonder, is that my imagination at work or the writer’s – or both working in unison?
We encounter this in Italo Calvino’s ‘If on a Winter Night a Traveller’ and also in Alice Hoffman’s ‘Blackbird House’, a slim thread enough to spur the reader on in the quest for enlightenment.
In Egan’s novel we meet Sacha who works for Bennie in the music industry, Bennie himself, his wife Stephanie, her ex-convict journalist brother Jules, Dolly who used to be Stephanie’s boss, Ted, Sacha’s Uncle and others whose lives have interacted at some point. We meet them at different periods in time, during particular episodes in their lives where even the young seem to have already lived numerous lives and carry a burdensome past that haunts their present. There is an underlying dissatisfaction with how things have turned out, the inevitability of time passing and taking with it something vital and essential.
Which reminds me, the goon squad; as Bosco says on page 134 ‘Time’s a goon, right?’ and so too I believe that a visit from the goon squad is just this, time passing and the oft harshness of reality.
Word by Word 
I just ordered this! Yay! Another good short story esque book gone novel is Olive Kittridge
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Oh yes 🙂 I forgot about ‘Olive Kittridge’ another great collection with excellent characterisation.
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Sounds intriguing!!
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Recently read this for my book group, and although we didn’t end up discussing it much (random book group fail – two members couldn’t attend that evening, so the three of us left drank wine and chatted instead 🙂 ) I thought it a very interesting book. Until I got to the end, I didn’t really understand why it won so many awards. It’s good – no doubt about that, well-written and unique – but it wasn’t until Egan looked forward with her social critique that I saw the entirety of her vision.
Another structurally interesting hybrid short story/novel is Frederick Reiken’s Day for Night. Just beautiful.
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Interesting… the word goon rolls easy off a tongue; I used it in one of my rough drafts. I am in awe of those who write independent chapters linked by some common thread the reader must suss out. It takes skill to make it work.
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This has been on my to-read shelf for a while, I love what you came up with for what a goon is!
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I have this book sitting at the bottom of a huge pile of books next to my bed, but think I’ll bring it to the top now. Being a fan of the short story, it sounds like a good read for me.
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I love how reading a review or just hearing what someone else is reading brings books to the top of the pile. One of my commenters mentioned ‘If on a winters night a traveller’ which wasn’t even on my reading pile, but bounced straight off my dusty shelf into premiere position and now I see another follower is reading Abraham Verghese’s ‘Cutting the Stone’ which is about to move up the pile.
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I loved the Goon Squad, too. Another good one is _Cloud Atlas_ by David Mitchell. I really struggled to get into it, but the voice in each section is incredibly distinct.
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Very well-written review, Claire. The book sounds very interesting.
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Am trying to give myself more time for fiction. It’s a permission thing 🙂
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I confess to demand-resistance regarding Pulitzer quality fiction – I read for escape, don’t make my brain work so hard! But this one sounds like it is worth the time/energy. Thanks for the recommend.
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Definitely accessible as far as being literary.
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