Author: Jennifer Egan
Title: A Visit From the Goon Squad by
Publication Info: Anchor (2011)
ISBN: 0307477479
Summary/Review:
I think it took me a good 70-80 pages to get into this collection of intertwined short stories and vignettes, but from that point on I was won over. Egan does a good job of establishing characters with seemingly minor characters from one story emerging as the main protagonist in a later story. She also does a great job of writing in many different styles, most remarkable with an emotionally touching story written as a Power Point slideshow. This type of experimental literature has been done before, but Egan effectively uses these devices without pretension to tell a story of ordinary people facing life and love and morality (as well as music). The only part I didn’t like was the final story set in the future which had too many cutesy gimmicks that didn’t ring true to the rest of the book. All the same, A Visit From the Goon Squad is in the running for one of my favorite books read this year.
Recommended books: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Jazz by Toni Morrison, and Ulysses by James Joyce.
Rating: ****1/2
Panorama of the Mountains 
I just recommended this book to a friend yesterday. It came out about the same time as Freedom did and that sucked up all the press. I hated that book. To me, Visit was much more a snapshot of us now than Franzen’s. Meantime, I cannot put down Gone Girl!
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Thanks for the comment Anon. I neglected to mention that I read this book because my wife said “Read this, I think you’ll like it.” My wife picks out good books for me.
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