[Knopf; 2010]
by Virginia Smith
It’s hard to read A Visit from the Goon Squad without wondering if Jennifer Egan, besides being one of the most technically impressive authors working today, is also a bit of masochist. In putting together this structurally elaborate (but instantly accessible) novel, she also saddled herself with the challenge of writing about music, one of the most excruciating tasks for any writer, creating an entire world around a fictionalized history of punk rock.
What’s more interesting, though, is that all the technical fireworks here still take a backseat to the unexpected assembly of characters Egan has created, even in a chapter that consists solely of PowerPoint slides created by a 12-year-old whose autistic brother obsessively chronicles the great “pauses” in music. A kleptomaniac producer’s assistant; a declining record executive plagued by shame flashbacks and a conviction that his erections will come back if he eats enough gold flakes; an obese, washed up punk icon staging a “suicide tour” as a comeback; a coked up producer with a penchant for teenage girlfriends; a failed PR woman revamping the image of a dictator to get back into the business – by the end of Goon Squad it’s impossible not to end up both invested in even the least likable of these characters. Egan never loses her perspective or sense of amusement with their usually weak efforts to combat the effects of time, the source of collective anxiety that hangs over the entire book.
Each of the thirteen chapters is told, with no eye to chronology, from the perspective of one of these characters, all loosely connected to one another, allowing the reader (and probably Egan herself) the best of both worlds – the poignancy and instant gratification of a short story collection, with all the depth of one of the best and most surprising full length novels in recent memory.
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