by Jennifer Egan
chosen by KM
Once again, KM chose this book on the recommendation of her GP - who has a great track record of book recommendations.
About the author:
Jennifer Egan is the author of The Invisible Circus, which was released as a feature film by Fine Line in 2001, Emerald City and Other Stories, Look at Me, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 2001, and the bestselling The Keep. Her new book, A Visit From the Goon Squad, a national bestseller, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the LA Times Book Prize. Also a journalist, she writes frequently in the New York Times Magazine.
(general biographical detail from the author's website)
What the publisher says about the book:
Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles 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 longstanding compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend.
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.
What we discussed about the book:
- In what ways did this book's structure mirror the way we find out each other's stories in real life - segmented, not in chronological order, lacking background information and connections? Patching pieces together over time to create a more complete story?
- The brilliance of the PowerPoint chapter. How did so few words communicate so much? Was this chapter a turning point in our appreciation of the book?
- The fantastic flowchart at Tessiegirl blog that kept track of all the relationships. Did we wish we had seen it before reading the book? Or had it alongside? Would seeing it in advance have changed our experience of reading the book?
- Who were our favourite characters? e.g La Doll, Lulu?
- Why was Ted sent to find Sasha? Did he want to find her?
- How was the theme of technology and technological advance woven through the book?
- What was the intention of the chapter where La Doll does PR for a dictator? Was it funny? Was it intended to make us question where lines should be drawn?
- What does the title mean? What is the definition of 'goon'?
- The differences in tone and style of each chapter - how did they work together?
- The A/B concept of creating an 'album'. What did the knowledge of this add to our understanding of the book?
- Why do some of us prefer stories to be told in a lineal, narrative fashion and some prefer a more scatter gun approach?
- Would this book benefit from a second reading? How would that change the way we experienced it?
- We wondered - did the author need a whiteboard to keep track while she was writing it?
- Who has interconnections in their lives and lots of cross-over or interlinking of friends/family/colleagues vs compartmentalized, silo-structure lives?
In other news, we discussed:
- Is it possible to reinvent yourself in the Internet age? What record of your past life will permanently exist and be accessible to all?
- The experience of seeing Shakespeare at The Globe Theatre in London.
- Are teenage girls over-committed with sports and other activities compared to our teen years?
Ratings:
Range: 6 to 9.5
Average: 7.25
Next book: The Thirteenth Apostle by Michel Benoit (chosen by JP)
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