A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (Random House, 25.95) is an absolutely
stellar novel. Egan's observations are as fearless as her choices; she
tells us about the promises that were the future and the sorrows that
surprised, and with that the power of her story eclipses all others.
The novel is
populated by a bunch of
'goons': quasi-adults whose music-scene
adolescence is still seen in surface traces, like the pit marks of acne
gone but waiting to curse future generations. The
novel is built in stories, and each story could easily stand alone,
however it is the visceral impact of the whole that makes Egan's work
both startling and compelling.
Here
is a group of people that you knew, even if you've never known a single
musician: the world-media of music has introduced us not only to the
success stories but also to the endless coverage of 'wannabes'. and Egan's
characters, her Goon Squad, are a group of friends and hangers-on who,
like distant cousins appear only briefly in the same music-driven
sphere but remain forever related.
The opposite of
wannabes is not has-beens, that would imply that they got somewhere,
Egan's novel haunts us with never-was's and could've-beens, each telling
us, in their own time, how it came to pass.
— Charline Spektor
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