A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Egan follows the lives of several different characters over decades in this novel. The way she shifts the point of view from each character highlights the flow of time and the effect it has on all of us. Each of the characters we experience relate to one another in some way—as family, old friends, or a one time acquaintance.

The last chapter in particular was one of my favorites, as it raises some interesting questions in regards to the implications of technology, especially hand-held devices such as our cell phone computers. When discussing this section of the book at a recent event, held by Columbia College in Chicago, Egan said she was "picking up on things in the air and imagining forward." Her imagination proved pretty accurate to the present day and our near future with children being inundated with technology from their birth. She foresaw,"class issues between off-the-grid people (without internet) being divided from those that have internet." As a society we will notice people starting to fall through the cracks unable to get into the flow of information.

This point reminded me of a local news show (not Chicago) where the vapid reporter "took to the streets" to interview homeless people and had the idiocy to ask them if they'd heard of the media buzz surrounding a homeless man in another state that went viral on the internet for his radio voice. Then seemed shocked when they didn't know what she was talking about. Egan made one of her characters, Scotty, one of the disconnected. In complete irony he becomes a sort of icon because he is seen as mysterious since no one can look up any information on him.

Another feeling that is present in the novel is how we fall in love with certain times and memories in our lives, and how the nostalgia can either affect us as a fleeting memory or we can dwell on the past. Dwelling on the past can cause us to compare our trajectory in life to others that were once close, Scotty resents Benny when he hears that he has become a big-shot record producer while Scotty resorts to fishing in the city's river for food. It's a quick read and you'll love relating to how certain characters completely change over time. Overall this book is an entertaining, there is variety in the characters' personalities and points of view. Sometimes we even receive different characters' takes on a significant time period—which is always fun. I look forward to diving into some of Egan's other works.

A Visit from the Goon Squad @ Amazon.com