A Visit from the Goon Squad

Name: A Visit from the Goon Squad
Author: Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan · 2010

Thirteen linked chapters, each in a different style (including one written entirely in PowerPoint slides), following a web of characters connected to the music industry across several decades. Egan published it in 2010 and won the Pulitzer. The goon squad of the title is time. The formal restlessness is the point; each chapter proves the novel can do something it was not supposed to be able to do.

The case against

on the flashback structure
“I’m sitting in on a therapy session rather than reading a novel”
a Substack review
on the punk club
“The punk club is wild and debauched in the way we’d expect”
Dylan Hicks · Minneapolis Star Tribune, 2010
on chapter four
“bombards the reader with a million new characters at once”
a book blog
on the final chapter
“the last, “futuristic” chapter is truly terrible”
a book blog