A Visit from the Goon Squad

By Jennifer Egan

And now for something completely different! Well, perhaps not completely different: this month I opted to listen to a book, rather than read one, because I was faced with an extended car trip, and I know from experience that listening to an audiobook while driving is the absolute best way to have your time behind the wheel pass quickly. So in this case, I chose to amend this weekly column from ‘Good Reads’ to ’Good Listens’, with the very skilled Roxanne Ortega providing the actual reading, covering 8 CDS and equalling just over 10 hours of listening enjoyment.

American author Jennifer Egan’s 2010 novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, received the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was widely considered one of the best books of the year by many U.S. publications, such as The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Boston Globe, to name but a few. Moreover, Egan’s book was selected as the winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, high praise indeed for this author’s fifth book. Although the novel is set in modern times, the chapters wander all over the map, both chronologically and geographically, ranging from the 1970s to a time in the not-so-distant future, and from New York to LA to Naples to Mombasa.

Apparently inspired by Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, “…all about how the work of time is unpredictable and in some sense unfathomable…” (in Egan’s words), A Visit from the Goon Squad follows the lives of several individuals immersed in the popular music scene of the 70s, and their children. Although there are many characters whose lives we visit in the course of the book, Benny Salazar, record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha Blake, form the touchstones around which the other characters revolve.

Although the book begins with Sasha aged 35, ensconced on her psychologist’s couch, over the course of 13 interrelated chapters it frequently dips back into her past, and then unexpectedly springs forward into her future, as well as that of the numerous others— colleagues, lovers, friends and foes—who are tied together by their involvement with pop music, or with Sasha and Benny. Part experimental novel (one whole chapter is written as a futuristic slide show/powerpoint, presented by a precocious 12 year old) and part old-fashioned character study, in which the reader is immersed in the lives and personalities of a host of fascinating characters, this novel is eminently readable. Egan is both a skilled story teller, and a very sharp observer of human nature. Sasha is nearly perfect: smart, beautiful, talented, but also a kleptomaniac. Benny, the outsider entrepreneur, has built a record empire, Sow’s Ear Records, but can’t hold his family together in an affluent southern California country club community. Lou is a charismatic but amoral music promoter who ruins the lives of those he uses in his quest to stay on top and fulfill his many carnal desires. Jules Jones, Benny’s brother-inlaw, is a promising but emotionally erratic journalist who spends four years in prison for assaulting the starlet he was interviewing, despite the fact that Kitty, the starlet, testifies in his defense. Dolly, Benny’s record company publicist, returns to the field many years after a cataclysmic fallout with her celebrity clientele and ends up working as a spin doctor for an Eastern European dictator/war criminal. Lulu, Dolly’s 10-yearold daughter, many years later emerges as the post-modern version of her mother, a music industry publicist, “a living embodiment of the new ‘handset employee’: paperless, deskless, commuteless, and theoretically omnipresent.” Ted, Sasha’s uncle, is sent to Italy to search for his missing 20-year-old niece, who is working as a prostitute and thief in the Neapolitan underworld. Scotty, the failed musician, is rediscovered years after he has been found living on the streets of NYC, and coaxed into giving a much-anticipated free, outdoor concert to thousands of music lovers. Alex is a university student from out of town who, in the first chapter, meets Sasha in New York, spends one night with her, and ultimately reconnects with the lasting memory of this encounter in the final chapter.

We meet most of the characters more than once, at different stages of their lives. Although the book itself may not tell a complete story, each chapter is a short story unto itself. This is a book that can be read (or listened to!) for the sheer enjoyment of the author’s grasp of language, and her ability to draw the reader into the extended “six degrees of separation” theme linking her many characters. However, it can also be read as an examination of some impressive themes, in particular the nature of time and memory (“Times a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?”), the interplay between music and life, identity and authenticity, and the fate of humanity.

Egan is a self-described “literary theory nut”, who knows and loves many forms of literature; a full understanding and appreciation of this book requires both a careful reading (and perhaps a rereading) as well as some research regarding her goals and influences. Interestingly, with her latest novel, Manhattan Beach (reviewed here in late March), Egan has returned to traditional story-telling, and finds it a refreshing challenge. In addition to fiction formats such as the short story and novel, she devotes much of her writing energy to long form journalism.

I would definitely recommend this book, either in print or as an audiobook. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it, although the truly unusual chapter/powerpoint presentation towards the end was a bit unsettling to listen to, and almost as disconcerting to see on the page, covered in diagrams. (Full disclosure, I did borrow the print edition of the book for purposes of this review.)

A Visit from the Goon Squad is available at the Lennoxville Library in both print and audiobook form.

Reviewed by Melanie Cutting