A Visit from the Goon Squad

By: Jennifer Egan

Narrated by: Roxana Ortega

Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the listener does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

We first meet Sasha in her mid-30s, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her long-standing compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then as a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We plunge into the hidden yearnings and disappointments of her uncle, an art historian stuck in a dead marriage, who travels to Naples to extract Sasha from the city’s demimonde and experiences an epiphany of his own while staring at a sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale.

We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life - divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house - and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang - who thrived and who faltered - and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far-flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is an audiobook about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both - and escape the merciless progress of time - in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

©2010 Jennifer Egan (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Pitch perfect.... Is there anything Egan can’t do in this mash-up of forms? Write successfully in the second person? Check. Parody celebrity journalism and David Foster Wallace at the same time? Check. Make a moving narrative out of a PowerPoint presentation? Check.... Although shredded with loss, A Visit from the Goon Squad is often darkly, rippingly funny. Egan possesses a satirist’s eye and a romance novelist’s heart.... No one is beyond the pale of her affection; no one is spared lampooning.... For a book so relentlessly savvy about the digital age and its effect on how we experience time (speeded up, herky-jerky, instantaneous, but also full of unbearable gaps and pauses), A Visit from the Goon Squad is remarkably old-fashioned in its obsession with time’s effects on characters, that preoccupation of those doorstop 19th-century novels.” (Will Blythe, The New York Times Book Review)

“If Jennifer Egan is our reward for living through the self-conscious gimmicks and ironic claptrap of postmodernism, then it was all worthwhile.... A deeply humane story about growing up and growing old in a culture corroded by technology and marketing.... [A] triumph of technical bravado and tender sympathy.... Here, in ways that surprise and delight again, she transcends slick boomer nostalgia and offers a testament to the redemptive power of raw emotion in an age of synthetic sound and glossy avatars. Turn up the music, skip the college reunion and curl up with The Goon Squad instead.” (Ron Charles, The Washington Post)

“It may be the smartest book you can get your hands on this summer.” (Carolyn Kellogg, The Los Angeles Times)

You have to pay attention!

Several reviews I read before purchasing this mentioned that it was difficult to follow as it jumped back and forth in time and between loosely related characters; so, I read with care, often going back and rereading sections. It was not hard to do that, as the story was engaging.

The writing was fresh and different. Magnificently casual with brilliantly REAL dialogue.

The craft of the writing kept me interested in a story that otherwise would not have interested me.

The story itself is for connoisseurs of music - particularly of rock n roll.

A lot of characters and mini-subplots

Many parts were interesting and thought-provoking, but there were too many characters and mini-plots for me to really keep track of.

I listen during long drives once or twice a week. Maybe if I listened straight through while not driving it would have been easier to follow.

Ambitious story about time and art, grating narration

Intricate web of characters, was happy to finally return to Sasha near the end. I appreciate the experimental format, and will think about it for a while. The narrator is terrific when she’s reading straight straight, but the exaggerated masculine voices and screechy child voices are a huge distraction.

A+

Great descriptive, character driven novel! Definitely a captivating read And had a hard time putting it down until I finished it.

Interesting Listen

This is an unusual book that gives an overview of the lives of Sasha and Bennie. Through stories about them and people that have intersected their lives, you glimpse pieces of Sasha and Bennie’s past, present and future. The stories are well written and the narrator does a good job. If you liked Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout or Homecoming by Yaa Gyasi you may enjoy this book as well. I did enjoy the writing and found it fun to piece together Sasha and Bennies lives from the fragments glimpsed in each story. I plan to listen to another book by this author.

A little hard to follow in audio format

There are so many characters in different time periods, that it was hard to follow. It was interesting and held my attention, but I wished I had a print version to flip back and forth between chapters.

Worth reading

A well written text, capturing narrating. Well worth the time spent rereading and listening again.

Best Book I’ve Ever Read

I am an avid reader, and love many great books, but there is nothing like Jennifer Eagan’s, A Visit From the Goon Squad. It’s beautiful, tight narrative still gives me goosebumps for its depth and honest look into human nature. I love this book for articulating our relationship with time and each other. This book is nothing short of brilliant.

Excellent in all aspects of the presentation

Can’t believe I’m only just getting to this incredible interesting and wholly unique experience of a novel! Wait… IS it a novel?

OK...

Lovely descriptive writing. Parts got tiring.. narrator’s male voices a bit annoying.. but I listened to the whole thing, which is better than many other books I’ve downloaded on Audible..