I read "A Visit From the Goon Squad"

This week's novel is A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.  This was recommended to me by my friend Eric.

This is a series of interconnected stories that follow the people around Bennie Salazar, as his fame as a record producer rises and falls, and the people around Sasha, his kleptomaniac assistant.  The focus shifts from chapter to chapter, passing through Bennie's band mates in high school, his mentor Lou and his family, Bennie's ex-wife and ex-wife's ex-boss, and through Sasha's family and friends.  It skips around in time from the seventies to the near future where music has to be made to appeal to 6-month-olds who by songs by poking at their parent's phones.  While each story focuses on a single moment, all together, you can get a sense of how the characters rise and fall over time, and how time changes everything.

While some of the individual chapters are amazing by themselves--I especially like the first chapter where Sasha explains to her therapist how she stole a woman's wallet while on a date, where the pull to steal things was presented in such a way as to make it both relatable and tragic--the part I got the most out of was how different each chapter was.  You get an immediate sense of the main character of each story by how the style changes.  There's a definite voice to each chapter and it comes through as the voice of the character rather than the voice of the author.

The one everyone talks about is the power point chapter, which I was pleasantly surprised not only by what a quality power point it was (I'm picky about good power point presentations) but also how easy it was to follow without the aid of the speaker who would be filling in the gaps and details when only the main points were presented on the slides.  It worked really well to tell a layered story and I honestly haven't seen that done before. 

But I feel like focusing on that chapter downplays how unique each of the other chapters were.  There's one in the second person because the narrator is high and detached and sort of narrating what he's doing to himself.  There's a whacky comedy of errors where a disgraced publicist tries to improve the image of a foreign dictator.  There's an interview with a movie star that you know from previous chapters is going to end poorly.  And aside from the form, there's the voice and the deep dives into each character's fears and ticks: kleptomania and extreme embarrassment remembering that thing you did twelve years ago, not wanting your husband to know how great you are at tennis at the country club but not wanting to lie about it, being your true "authentic" self, and not wanting anyone to know you sold out.  The versatility is impressive.

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Next week: When Dimple Met Rishi, YA romance by Sandhya Menon