Sunday, February 10, 2013

My Visit with the Goon Squad

I'll let the New York Times review say what I can't:

"How wide a circumference can she achieve in A Visit From the Goon Squad while still maintaining any sort of coherence and momentum? How loosely can she braid the skein of connections and still have something that hangs together?

"There is a madness to her method. She hands off the narrative from one protagonist to another in a wild relay race that will end with the same characters with which it begins while dispensing with them for years at a time."

Or the Pulizer Prize committee:

"For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, Ten thousand dollars ($10,000).

"Awarded to A Visit From the Goon Squad byJennifer Egan, an inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed."

Or The Guardian review:


"This is a difficult book to summarise, but a delight to read, gradually distilling a medley out of its polyphonic, sometimes deliberately cacophonous voices."


Or maybe I'll just say this: 

a rollicking good read with twists and turns, humor, pathos, and a crazy forward-backward-now collision of time I spent well on a windy, rainy Sunday, sitting on a couch with a cat and a quilt.

2 comments:

MDB said...

Now, I really have to read it!

Alina said...

Me too! I've thought of reading it on and off but with your endorsement it's on my list. Would love to it if you recommend books on an ongoing basis!