A Visit from the Goon Squad

Author: Jennifer Egan

Rating: ⭐ 2/5

Date Read: 2012/09/18

Pages: 337

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote “I hold that a wise man will write nothing but that which is known only to himself and that he will not produce his truth until it is imperatively demanded by the exigencies of the conversation which has arrived at that point. So is the shrine and pedestal ready, so he produces his statue and fills the eye.”

With her “book” A Visit From the Goon Squad (in reality, a disjointed collection of short stories), Egan does exactly the opposite: she figures out what is is imperatively demanded by the exigencies of society, then fakes relevancy. The result: a shallow book “about” music and life and technology, that isn’t actually about anything.

Throughout the “book,” Egan throws out references. She references San Francisco punk rock bands, and Facebook, and drug culture, and academia. It becomes clear to the reader, however, that she cares very little about music. Indeed, one detects palpable schadenfreude in Egan’s writing, because it’s clear that she wants these cool musicians to get what’s coming to them.

Thinking about it, the issue with A Visit form the Goon Squad is “coolness.” Egan desperately wants to be cool. She talks about foreign locations and drugs and music because it’s “cool.” She creates “cool” characters. She even does a chapter in PowerPoint. Egan isn’t in the music business, and she has said “any expertise I might seem to possess is purely the product of research.” (AudioGo Interview) Clearly, she didn’t do her research well enough: everyone knows that trying hard to be cool makes you completely uncool. Although, I guess she fooled the Pulitzer committee.