'A Visit from the Goon Squad' by Jennifer Egan is a novel that intricately weaves together interconnected stories of various characters, exploring themes of aging, time, and redemption. The narrative jumps between different characters' perspectives, timelines, and writing styles, creating a complex and layered reading experience. The book delves into the lives of individuals in New York City, particularly those in the music industry, showcasing their struggles, relationships, and personal growth over the years. Through a series of disjointed vignettes and creative storytelling techniques like Power Point presentations and mobile texts, the author paints a vivid picture of life in the Big Apple and the impact of time on the characters' journeys.
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Sensitive Topics/Content Warnings
Content warnings may include drug use, mental health issues, suicide, sexual themes, and aging.
Has Romance?
There are romantic elements throughout the book, with characters navigating relationships and their complexities.
From The Publisher:
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCE WINNER
With music pulsing on every page, this startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption "features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human" (The Chicago Tribune).
Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs.
"Pitch perfect.... Darkly, rippingly funny.... Egan possesses a satirist's eye and a romance novelist's heart." -The New York Times Book Review
Ratings (50)
Incredible (7) | |
Loved It (17) | |
Liked It (10) | |
It Was OK (11) | |
Did Not Like (4) | |
Hated It (1) |
Reader Stats (93):
Read It (54) | |
Want To Read (34) | |
Did Not Finish (1) | |
Not Interested (4) |
1 comment(s)
When I first started reading this I thought, "oh. Mini-Infinite Jest." And it is similar to IJ in some ways, but the more it sits with me the more I see that
Goon Squad is by no means a copy-cat. I can't quite give it four stars because I wish it was longer. At the end I had a hard time remembering how each character related to the others, because the connections are so tenuous in places. However, the last set piece of the novel is brilliant. I really liked the vision of a future Manhattan and the idea of no one being pure, even if they try not to be a sell-out, whatever that is.
What can you read after
A Visit from the Goon Squad?
About the Author:
Jennifer Egan is the author of four novels: A Visit from the Goon Squad, The Keep, Look at Me, The Invisible Circus; and the story collection Emerald City. Her stories have been published in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, GQ, Zoetrope, All-Story, and Ploughshares, and her nonfiction appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine. She lives with her husband and sons in Brooklyn.
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