A Visit from the Goon Squad

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A Visit from the Goon Squad
A Visit From the Goon Squad.jpg
Hardcover edition
Author Jennifer Egan
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Knopf
Publication date
June 8, 2010
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages288 pp.
ISBN 978-0-307-59283-5
OCLC 449844391
LC Class PS3555.G292 V57 2010
Followed by"Black Box"

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a 2011 Pulitzer Prize-winning work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. The book is a set of thirteen interrelated stories with a large set of characters all connected to Bennie Salazar, a record company executive, and his assistant, Sasha. The book centers on the mostly self-destructive characters of different ages who, as they grow older, are sent in unforeseen, and sometimes unusual, directions by life. The stories shift back and forth in time from the 1970s to the present and into the near future. Many of the stories take place in and around New York City, although other settings include San Francisco, Italy, and Kenya.

Contents

In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, the book also won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2010. The novel received mostly positive reviews from critics and later appeared in many lists of the best fiction works of the 2010s.

Collection or novel

Because of its unusual narrative structure, some critics have characterized the book as a novel and others as a collection of linked short stories. A Visit from the Goon Squad has 13 chapters, which can be read as individual stories and which do not focus on any single central character or narrative arc. Many were originally published as short stories in magazines such as the New Yorker [1] [2] [3] and Harper's Magazine . In an interview with Salon.com's Laura Miller, Egan said she leaned toward calling the book a novel rather than a short story collection. She has also said that she considers the book to be neither a story collection nor a novel. [4]

Stories

Characters

Themes

"Goon squads" were originally groups of violent thugs sent to assault workers who tried to form labor unions. Later the term "goon" came to refer more generally to any violent thug, and this is where the book draws its central metaphor. In one story, a character named Bosco declares: "Time's a goon, right?", [6] referring to the way that time and fate cruelly rob most of the book's characters of their youth, innocence and success. As Bosco complains: "How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about?" [7] Some of the book's characters do end up finding happiness, but it is always a limited happiness, and it is rarely in the form they sought. In an interview, Egan explained that "time is the stealth goon, the one you ignore because you are so busy worrying about the goons right in front of you." [7]

Many of the book's characters work in the rock music business. Rock and roll, with its emphasis on youth culture, plays into the book's themes of aging and the loss of innocence. As Egan says, "my 9-year-old loves Lady Gaga and refers to Madonna as ‘old school’. There's no way to avoid becoming part of the past." [7] Rock music was also central to the marketing push behind the book, although the actual text does not focus directly on musicians or music making. Egan said she knew rock and roll only as a consumer at the time she began writing the book and had to do a lot of research on the subject. [8]

Egan said the story was inspired by two sources: Proust's In Search of Lost Time , and HBO's The Sopranos . It is a novel of memory and kinship, continuity, and disconnection. [9]

Reception

Honors

The novel won both the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction. The Pulitzer Prize Board noted that the novel was an "inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed". [10]

Critical reception

According to Book Marks, the book received "rave" reviews based on twelve critic reviews with eleven being "rave" and one being "mixed". [11] The BookScore gave it an aggregated critic score of 8.7/10 based on an accumulation of British and American press reviews. [12] On The Omnivore, in an aggregation of British and American press reviews, the book received a score of 4.0 out of 5. [13] The book received a 82% from The Lit Review based on twenty-two critic reviews and the consensus of the reviews being, "Each chapter feels like stories within itself; the overall novel is beautifully structured and magnificently written." [14] On Bookmarks September/October 2010 issue, a magazine that aggregates critic reviews of books, the book received a Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg (4.0 out of 5) based on critic reviews with the critical summary saying, "Critics loved Egan’s newest novel, describing it as "audacious" and "extraordinary" (Philadelphia Inquirer)". [15]

In commenting on her Pulitzer, NPR critic Jonathan Bastian noted that "Egan is one of the most recent and successful examples of a trend that has been steadily seeping into the world of contemporary literature." The unusual format of the novel, taking place across multiple platforms, has led some critics to label the novel "post-postmodern". [16] Many critics were impressed by Egan's experiments with structure, such as a section formatted like a PowerPoint printout. [17]

In 2019, The Guardian ranked A Visit from the Goon Squad as the 24th best book since 2000. [18] It was third place (along with Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad) in a Literary Hub list of the best books of the 2010s, [19] one of the 10 books in Time’s list of the best fiction works of the 2010s, [20] and first place in Entertainment Weekly 's list concerning the same period, with Leah Greenblatt calling it "a book as rich and resonant as any linear classic in the canon." [21]

Adaptation

Two days after the Pulitzer Prize announcement, it was announced that a deal with HBO for a television series adaptation had been signed. [22] However, after two years the proposal had been dropped. [23] In 2023, A24 announced that it had optioned the rights to the book and its sequel The Candy House for development into a television series with Olivia Wilde. [24]

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References

  1. Egan, Jennifer (December 10, 2007). "Found Objects". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  2. Egan, Jennifer (March 2010). "Ask Me If I Care". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  3. Egan, Jennifer (January 11, 2010). "Safari". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
  4. Maran, Meredith (June 13, 2010). ""Goon Squad": Jennifer Egan's time-travel tour de force". Salon.com. Retrieved November 13, 2015.
  5. "Reconstructing Timelines in A Visit From the Goon Squad". Reconstructing Timelines in A Visit From the Goon Squad. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  6. (p. 109)
  7. 1 2 3 Jane, Ciabattari (June 29, 2010). "Jennifer Egan Interview, A Visit from the Goon Squad". The Daily Beast. Retrieved October 4, 2023.
  8. A Conversation with JENNIFER EGAN Archived February 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine , BBC Audiobooks America
  9. "A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan – review", Sarah Churchwell, The Guardian , March 13, 2011
  10. "Pulitzer Prize Citation". Pulitzer.org. Archived from the original on May 12, 2011. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  11. "A Visit from the Goon Squad". Book Marks. Retrieved January 16, 2024.
  12. "A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan". The BookScore. Archived from the original on August 28, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
  13. "A Visit from the Goon Squad". The Omnivore. Archived from the original on August 21, 2011. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
  14. ""A Visit from the Goon Squad" by Jennifer Egan". The Lit Review. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved July 12, 2024.
  15. "A Visit from the Goon Squad By Jennifer Egan". Bookmarks. Archived from the original on September 5, 2015. Retrieved January 14, 2023.
  16. Speakeasy blog (April 18, 2011). "Jennifer Egan on Winning the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  17. "Jennifer Egan wins fiction Pulitzer". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on October 26, 2012. Retrieved April 20, 2011.
  18. Guardian Staff (September 21, 2019). "The 100 best books of the 21st century". The Guardian. ISSN   0261-3077 . Retrieved November 8, 2019.
  19. "Best of the Decade: What Books Will We Still Be Reading in 10 Years?". Literary Hub. September 24, 2019. Retrieved February 18, 2020.
  20. "The 10 Best Fiction Books of the 2010s". Time. November 12, 2019. Retrieved July 2, 2020.
  21. "Here are EW's top 10 fiction books of the decade". EW.com. November 25, 2019. Retrieved August 18, 2020.
  22. "HBO Sets Pulitzer Prize Winner 'A Visit From The Goon Squad' For Series Treatment", Mike Flemming, April 20, 2011
  23. Alexandra Alter (February 21, 2013). "TV's Novel Challenge: Literature on the Screen". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved February 27, 2013.
  24. Kroll, Justin (April 14, 2023). "Olivia Wilde, A24 Team On TV Adaptation Of Jennifer Egan Novels A Visit From The Goon Squad & The Candy House". Deadline Hollywood . Penske Media Corporation.