Jennifer Egan

Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. The author reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs.

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Eli Alvah Huckabee

"Oh, sure," Lulu said. "BTs—blind teams—work especially well with older people. I mean"—she smiled—"people over thirty."

Working side-by-side for a record label, former punk rocker Bennie Salazar and the passionate Sasha hide illicit secrets from one another while interacting with a motley assortment of equally troubled people from 1970s San Francisco to the post-war future. By the National Book Award-nominated author of Look at Me.

Sanja Grbic

You kneel beside her, breathing the familiar smell of Sasha's sleep, whispering into her ear some mix of 

I will never leave you, I'll be curled around your heart for the rest of your life

, until the water pressing my shoulders and chest crushes me awake and I hear Sasha screaming into my face: 

I think, The world is actually huge. That's the part no one can really explain.

That we have some history together that hasn’t happened yet.

Chris Dailey

Can be classified as either a string of connected short stories or loosely held together novel or perhaps neither, the narrative follows folks orbiting in the music industry universe. Darkly funny or just plain dark, the novel focuses on the fleeting nature of youth, generational trauma, the fool's gold of fame and fortune, while sprinkling in just enough sex, drugs and rock n'roll (or, more accurately, punk). The lightness of prose in the face of heavy topics stands out along with the creative uses of formatting as each chapter changes perspective, tone, and layout while moving throughout the 80's, 90's, and near future. Immensely readable and enjoyable but the concept sits with you more than the characters.

Patrick Book

This was an unexpected treat! Surprisingly ranging and epic and so well fleshed out, character wise.

Megan Parrott

I live for books that follow multiple characters over a lifetime—or more, especially when told through various perspectives and voices.

Mat Connor

Novels that are actually a series of interconnected short stories where the whole point is for the author to show you how all of the characters coincidentally connect to each other in crazy ways are usually not my favorite. I feel like that's a structure that some authors use to make their novel seem deep and important, but can just feel dumb and pretentious in the wrong hands.

Thankfully, Jennifer Egan is such a talented writer that she pulls this structure off. Egan's so talented that it kind of feels like she's showing off a bit and trying to find ways to challenge herself. I mean this as a compliment. You feel her thinking "Ok so far I've done first person, second person, third person, a story told by Powerpoint, a story set in the future where people talk in txt speak... now let's do a a story written as a celebrity profile by a pretentious writer who overuses footnotes and sounds just like David Foster Wallace." I'm sure it was hard work but I bet she had fun writing this. 

The clear theme of this novel is how time's unrelenting march can crush and haunt us. A through line for many of these stories is a character wrestling with their past and memories, trying to redeem a past mistake or lost opportunity. I realized about halfway through that Egan isn't just trying to show time's impact on people. She's just as interested in how time changes society and cultural norms. The structure clicked for me when I realized that.

This book is really funny in parts. My favorite story was about the disgraced, down on her luck publicist who takes on a contract to improve public relations for a genocidal dictator. I swear it's funnier than it probably sounds.

It’s much more unique than its description suggests and makes the most of the episodic structure. The big swings towards the end generally pay off too. 

Luke Pearce

different than expected, better than anticipated 

kari <33

Pretty much every creative writing professor (and my friend Billie) told me to read this book years ago, and they were all right! It’s like the classic example piece for an intro course but actually good, thoughtful, bland in a good way. The chapter I’ve seen before, the infamous PowerPoint, was actually my least favorite. It’s already so dated and not how I would wave tackle it, but it was bold at the time and a creative idea that could still be expanded on today. This is probably the first Pulitzer winner I have enjoyed and will praise.

★★★★ // a lovely piece on the inevitability of aging, growing old alone, and just this overall cloud of sadness that hovers over you each passing day.

Aine Meehan

** spoiler alert **
           Wow, this was fantastic. I do think if I had read it in my twenties I might have been like "huh?" It was all the better I think for me being older. The characters are so well developed and it's one of those books that shifts between timelines in such a way that you never get lost. Nearly read it in one go. Loved it. There was a kind of lesson in it too, I found it very uplifting. Yes we get older, but that's ok, sometimes our lives are better the older we get.

Peggy Walker

And this is why I am not on the committee for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Although many have praised the leapfrogging through time and from character, to me it felt as though several manuscripts had been ripped apart and the pages tben laid out in random order. The section told in Venn diagrams/Powerpoint slides gold an interesting sub-story, but was beyond gimmicky. I can't understand the purpose of the time-travel, and unfortunately by the end I was more exhausted than exhilarated. Pity.

I couldn't connect with the characters as much as I wish I did in a book like this but I enjoyed this nonetheless.

Truly a unique read! The narrative perspective shifts and experimentation in storytelling methods caught me by surprise — but once I figured out what was going on, I couldn’t stop turning the pages to see how it all came together

Lynn

2 ⭐️ This book is incredibly odd. Throughout the book I had no clue what was going on or what the focus of the plot was. All chapters seemed to be standalones that had some brief cross-pollination. However, the big time jumps, extensive cast of characters and non-chronological timeframe, made it extremely difficult to follow a coherent plotline and form attachments to the protagonists. There is some beautiful writing and oddly accurate metaphors that I particularly enjoyed. The two parts, A and B, of the story mirroring the sides of a CD of vinyl is a nice touch, but overall the story was too haphazard and general for me to enjoy. Points for originality and intent, but only two stars due to chaotic storytelling, haphazard plot and bible-esque number of characters. This might be better on a reread.

Kristen Claiborn

I struggled with this book. From beginning to end I had a hard time trying to ascertain what this book was about. This book reminded me of the series finale of Seinfeld-what the hell is actually going on? The first chapter gives the reader something that resembles a story, but everything that follows was just a big ol' messy jumble of words. I wish I had not picked it up and wasted time reading it. The characters are about as likeable as dog pooh (except Lulu, I liked her and wanted more of her story). For all those readers who disagree, good for you. I'm glad this one "spoke" to you. It spoke to me too: it told me to put it down.

Jeannette Ordas

I probably should have swallowed this book in one big whole, but instead I read a bit before I went on holiday, some tiny smatterings while away, and the rest as soon as I got back. I liked how characters reappeared or intertwined in other people's lives in this bittersweet tale of growing up and getting old. It's clever and fun and isn't just one story but many - including one told in PowerPoint! Time is indeed a goon.

Amy Thibodeau

I thought this was brilliant: creative, fun, unique and generally just superb. One of the best books I've ever read.

One of my favourite books. A re-read that stands the test of time for me.

Sarah Erle

Garrett Jansen

A set of short stories that wind a narrative that hits a bit harder than you'd think, interrogating youth and the process of aging in a way that had me worried about the way I'm living.

Avery Baumel

Unlike anything I have ever read before, an absolute marvel of a book. It is incredible how each story curves and grows around a new one. Would’ve been 5/5 if not for the horrible text talk in the last chapter. Apart from that an absolutely flawless book, perfectly executed. 

Maria Davis 

I don’t think I’ve loved a book this much in a long time 

Emily Carruthers 

Trever

Overall I feel like this book was really good, really entertaining and sometimes vaguely haunting. The last chapter, however, I'm pretty sure is satire of the dystopian the-next-generation-is-bad stuff mixed with Egan's descriptiveness.

Samantha Chavez 

This book is a collection of people who are all somehow connected to one another. It’s about time passing and all the things that happen in between, how things changes and how they circle back around and how that’s all just a part of life. It’s about how little things stick with you and the important moments in life and the things you’ll be known for if you’re known at all. 
It was weird and cool and smart all at once.

Fraser Simons

I find that the best fiction tends to be so hyper focused on saying one particular thing, that it becomes about everything. A human experience. The condition of life. In this case: time. Our relationship to it; the process of constructing a life that I consider destiny or fate—man made, but robbed by puritans and given to god, as all Good things are. Sacrificed. 

This narrative reclaims that power and gives it back to the people. The effect that someone who you don’t remember for ages and ages can have on you. So much time has passed and your grey matter hasn’t made an association. But then, something happens and you’re right there. Connected. Both embodied and apart from who you were, while being the product of those inconsequential moments. 

The gravitas that every single chapter is built around is simply staggering. It says that what we do matters. We make and destroy lives at a granular level. While the goon comes for everyone, and some of these moments are irreparably sad—life and death stakes, playing for keeps with a throwaway comment or a squeezing of a hand, the compromise that settles and settled in the dregs of your soul. It also means that there is an inherent, beautiful and wondrous agency to the small creatures of our burgeoning lives. 

Nostalgia lives here, sure, but for once it isn’t trite.

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Reviews

Highlights