A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Bennie is a retired punk rocker and former record company executive. The passionate, unstable young woman he hires is named Sasha. Here, Jennifer Egan deftly exposes their histories as well as the inner lives of a large cast of characters whose paths cross theirs.
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
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Is there a time-travel plot in this book? In a Wellsian sense, no. Here, time travel is not a concept. The characters don’t talk about it or use it. However, the reader goes on a time journey. We can look both forward and backwards to see the future.
The book Goon Squad is a mosaic. I am aware of this since Interstitial Arts have a paper on the subject that I recently picked up. Each chapter in this book is a standalone short narrative, which gives it a mosaic-like quality. In fact, one chapter was released as a standalone work in a literary journal last year, so there you go. Each mini-story contains a plot and a protagonist.
Each has a role in the overall plot, but each also has its own small life and moment. Sasha’s story, which occurs roughly halfway through the novel’s time period, is told at the book’s opening. Sasha discusses her date, her kleptomania problem, and her boss Bennie, a successful pop music executive. She has just taken a wallet from a purse that was lying on the bathroom floor of the restaurant where Sasha and Alex are out on a date. The woman whose wallet was taken panics and asks the other customers to seek for it with her. Sasha searches for it while feeling guilty and “finds” it again in the restroom.
Sasha’s turning point is one of atonement. a rare instance in the book. Years later, Sasha is fired from Bennie’s business for stealing, Bennie gets fired from the business for losing his touch, and Alex has given up on his own music career. Alex’s time has come. He has reconnected with Bennie years after Sasha’s pivotal moment, which is a strange turn of events. Bennie is making an effort to reconnect with Scotty, an old acquaintance.
