A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

I have loved all the Pulitzer Prize winners in Fiction for years (all except March by Geraldine Brooks – bleh! – sorry) and have happily taken each book, as a given, to read. Last year’s Tinkers was a heartfelt account of a death, Olive Kitteridge was a seriously good read and has a lot in common, well, style-wise to Jennifer Egan’s book, but more on that later. And The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is one of my all time favourites. In fact, just look up the winners and pick one to read – you won’t be disappointed.

A Visit from the Goon Squad (if you click on this link please read/listen to the 12 Great Rock and Roll Pauses even if you don't read the book) deserves its place among these greats of modern literature. The themes of time, technology, music and the small chances or fates that interact with our lives and alter everything are just as essential to the plots of these stories as the people in them.

The stories in the book are all linked together by the people we meet as we go along in this non-linear narrative. This style was also used in Olive Kitteridge (see, I said we would get to this) although in that book the stories were all based around Olive as the central planet. Egan leads us on a jaunt through time and to places which I, for one, was really happy to go. Each chapter was a stand-alone story as well as a cleverly layered tier in the overall larger story.

“Time is a Goon” one of Egan’s character says when he realises that he has run out of it and time hasn’t taken him where he thought he should have gone. Goons are thugs - or very silly, funny people for whom nothing is sacred. All the the people who populate this book have issues with time from Bennie the San Francisco punk rocker kid to Bennie the ageing New York record executive and Sasha the young girl in love with the wrong guy to Sasha the grown up kleptomaniac (but never from a shop!). They are all fascinating. And I wanted more.

One of my favourite bits of this novel is that one of the characters sprinkles gold flakes in his coffee. He also sprays his own armpits with pesticide as a deodorant for very reasons he sees as quite sane. One of the chapters is written in PowerPoint and it doesn’t feel out of place, in fact it works.

Read this book. Get this book from your library or borrow it from a friend. Find it in a second hand shop or ask your sister to buy it for your birthday present. But read this book. I can’t think of anyone that I don’t think would enjoy it on some level be it pure entertainment or serious moral lessons – everyone will get something out of it.