I’ve had “A Visit From the Goon Squad” tucked in my bag since late September, but I only just finished reading it. I borrowed the book after much reluctance from my friend Julian Young ’26, who had picked it up in Chelsea Market and opened it to find that the author, Jennifer Egan herself, had signed it. He proceeded to incessantly rave about the novel, even though I was just getting to know him. I asked to borrow it then, curious as to what kind of literature made him so excited; he agreed casually and immediately. When I finally got a hold of it from him, I felt doubtful, unsure if the book would live up to the complexity and heartfulness that I was expecting.
Within the first few chapters, it becomes clear that “complex” is an understatement. The book follows an expansive cast of characters back and forth over a collection of years, at times feeling like a maze of plotlines and anecdotes the reader struggles to keep up with. One chapter will be about Sasha, a kleptomaniac assistant for bigshot music producer, Bennie, who’s lost his edge.The next chapter will bring you back a few decades to Bennie, now a 17-year-old punk with a reliable group of friends and an unreliable band. This sort of jumping back and forth through time, connecting characters at different points in their lives, is what lies at the heart of what makes the book so special.
Reading about a middle-aged Bennie from Sasha’s perspective in the present-day made me roll my eyes at the sort of haughty yet aimless character he seemed to represent. Yet, the next chapter forced me to reshape my opinion, seeing him as an impassioned kid who loves music and a girl in his band. There’s a gap that exists there, between Bennie’s days of trying to book gigs for his band that keeps getting assaulted with tomatoes and beer cans during shows, to his days of struggling to keep his record label afloat, signing bands that inspire a dull ache within him instead of excitement and passion. The drive to find the answer to this question propels the reader to flip the page, only to find that Egan has moved on to another character.
The book is littered with characters like Bennie—people who are wandering through life, often unhappily and unsuccessfully. Within this cast, my favorite character is Rob, a friend of Sasha’s from her NYU days. Rob is kind-hearted and misguided, struggling to find the point in continuing his life. While in the hospital, recovering from a suicide attempt, Rob is visited by a worn-out Sasha, who tells him that they are the survivors of this world and that he can never do anything like that ever again. He promises her, but a few months later he drowns in the East River. As the current crashes against his chest, he imagines himself floating away from his body and into Sasha’s room. He presses himself against her sleeping body and whispers in her ear that he’s sorry and he loves her and he will be curled up against her heart forever, protecting her. Through teary eyes, I reread this chapter again and again, savoring the moments when Egan writes with a ferocity and wit that are specific to Rob. Then, in a move that is used in almost every chapter of the book, Egan uses blunt force in her writing, cutting down a character who the reader has developed an astounding amount of empathy for.
The magic of “A Visit From the Goon Squad” lies in both the delicateness with which Egan treats characters who seem, at times, hopeless and undeserving, and the interconnectedness of all of them. They have a desire to be better but they just can’t be, a sentiment echoed best in the line, “Redemption, transformation—God how she wanted these things. Every day, every minute. Didn’t everyone?” The persistent goon in the book is seemingly time itself, and it becomes the thing that the characters blame for what they have not been able to accomplish. Rob and Bennie, two characters who never directly meet are characterized by their attempts to push against the onslaught of time. Bennie becomes disillusioned and Rob ends his life. In a more direct way, the two are connected through Sasha, who knew both of them at vastly different points in her life. Egan writes, “Everyone we’ve lost, we’ll find. Or they’ll find us.”
From a technical perspective, the book shines in its experimental nature. Depending on the character, Egan adopts a different writing style. The reader jumps from a chapter told through second-person narration to a chapter that is written entirely in PowerPoint. Another chapter zeroes in on details that give away a character’s neurotic tendencies, mirroring the writing style of David Foster-Wallace. The book is littered with musical references, seamlessly creating a soundtrack to the stories. Egan makes bold choices as a writer that ultimately pay off and produce a refreshing read, instead of giving way to pretension.
Readers step away from the novel understanding that the impact of our lives ripple through timelines and generations. Sasha’s children ask her about Rob, whose photograph lives in her wallet. Egan forces readers to reconsider moments in the past, finding camaraderie with people whose influence can only be understood when one takes the time to map out the events of one’s life. There’s a sense of carefulness and attention to detail that shapes the book. The regret, heartbreak and loss that permeates the lives of the characters are reflective of what half the deal of life is. Instead of fighting it or turning away, “A Visit From the Goon Squad” shows that these moments are necessary in painting the fuller picture of life.