A Visit From the Goon Squad

I recently finished A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan. It had been a while since I picked up a book. I tend to go in spurts. I’ll read 5-6 books in a row, hit a bad one, and not read again for months. Goon Squad was a great book to get me back into the reading spirit.

Each chapter is its own little story – which made it easy to pick up, read a chapter, then go back about your day- yet they all tie together. Each chapter brings a character from the previous one into focus. Maybe you weren’t really paying attention to that secondary character in the background that maybe had a few lines, or was maybe just mentioned off-hand, but maybe you should have as the next chapter could be all about them and how they helped shaped one of the two main characters, Bennie and Sasha.

The book follows the lives of Bennie and Sasha by criss-crossing back and forth throughout their history and future and all the people who’s paths they’ve crossed either individually or together or sometimes without even knowing that they each knew these people. It takes place amongst the seedy world of the music industry and how it can just destroy you in so many different ways. Whether you’re making it, loving it, working in it, or just following around your friends/lovers who are making it, loving it, or working in it.

It left me feeling sad, wistful, a little empty, a little scared for our future, a little wondering what’s it all for. Especially with my recent foray into the music making scene, it’s makes you realize you really need to remember what you’re doing it all for.

I could see a lot of people I know in these characters and it made me sad for them.

Don’t get me wrong, the book isn’t that depressing. I highly recommend you read it. But, this is just what I took from it, which is the beauty of books and art – everyone gets a little something different out of it.