Jennifer Egan's spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city's demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale.
We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life--divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house--and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang--who thrived and who faltered--and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie's catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou's far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both--and escape the merciless progress of time--in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers. From the Hardcover edition.
Jennifer Egan's spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.
We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist's couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city's demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale.
We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life--divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house--and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang--who thrived and who faltered--and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie's catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou's far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.
A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both--and escape the merciless progress of time--in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers. From the Hardcover edition.
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Add to your library to track progress and write reviews
Find A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Find A Visit from the Goon Squad Jennifer Egan in PDF, EPUB, ebook, audiobook, print, or library editions.
Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)
1 books in catalog
Innovative narrative structure and genre-crossing storytelling define the fiction of American author Jennifer Egan, whose work spans historical drama, satire, and speculative fiction. Her major works include the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad and its bestselling companion novel The Candy House.
Jennifer Egan was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 7, 1962, and raised in San Francisco, California. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed a Master of Arts at St. John's College, Cambridge. Her early fiction included the debut novel The Invisible Circus, which was later adapted into a 2001 feature film starring Cameron Diaz, as well as the short story collection Emerald City and Other Stories. Her 2001 novel Look at Me earned widespread critical recognition as a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. She later published the gothic-inspired novel The Keep in 2006.
Egan achieved widespread acclaim with her 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, which was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She followed this success with the 2017 historical novel Manhattan Beach, which received the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. In 2022, she released The Candy House, a companion novel to A Visit from the Goon Squad that was selected as one of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2022. In addition to her novelistic work, her short fiction and journalism have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New York Times Magazine. Egan has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and served as president of PEN America from 2018 to 2020.
Egan's writing often incorporates unconventional formats, shifting perspectives, and formal experimentation to examine how technology, time, and memory shape human relationships. In contrast to traditional linear plots, her narratives frequently jump across decades and alternate among diverse voices to highlight interconnected lives. While novels like Look at Me critique image culture and identity in the digital age, works such as A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House experiment with structural forms—ranging from PowerPoint slides to networked narratives—to investigate the impacts of data, memory, and technological change.
1 books in catalog
Innovative narrative structure and genre-crossing storytelling define the fiction of American author Jennifer Egan, whose work spans historical drama, satire, and speculative fiction. Her major works include the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad and its bestselling companion novel The Candy House.
Jennifer Egan was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 7, 1962, and raised in San Francisco, California. She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Pennsylvania and completed a Master of Arts at St. John's College, Cambridge. Her early fiction included the debut novel The Invisible Circus, which was later adapted into a 2001 feature film starring Cameron Diaz, as well as the short story collection Emerald City and Other Stories. Her 2001 novel Look at Me earned widespread critical recognition as a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. She later published the gothic-inspired novel The Keep in 2006.
Egan achieved widespread acclaim with her 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, which was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She followed this success with the 2017 historical novel Manhattan Beach, which received the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. In 2022, she released The Candy House, a companion novel to A Visit from the Goon Squad that was selected as one of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2022. In addition to her novelistic work, her short fiction and journalism have appeared in publications such as The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Granta, McSweeney's, and The New York Times Magazine. Egan has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and served as president of PEN America from 2018 to 2020.
Egan's writing often incorporates unconventional formats, shifting perspectives, and formal experimentation to examine how technology, time, and memory shape human relationships. In contrast to traditional linear plots, her narratives frequently jump across decades and alternate among diverse voices to highlight interconnected lives. While novels like Look at Me critique image culture and identity in the digital age, works such as A Visit from the Goon Squad and The Candy House experiment with structural forms—ranging from PowerPoint slides to networked narratives—to investigate the impacts of data, memory, and technological change.
