A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan's spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing 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 reader 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-thirties, 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 a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. 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, revelling in San Francisco's punk scene as he discovers his ardour 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 a book 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.

- Google

The 384th greatest fiction book of all time


This book is on the following lists:

  1. - 1st on Top 10 Fiction Books of the Decade(2010) (Entertainment Weekly)
  2. - 7th on The 21st Century's 12 Greatest Novels (BBC)
  3. - 24th on The 100 best books of the 21st century (The Guardian)
  4. - Modern classics: 11 novels that belong in the classroom (Today.com)
  5. - From Zero to Well-Read in 100 Books (Jeff O'Neal at Bookriot.com)
  6. - Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (Pulitzer Prize)
  7. - The Best Fiction Books of the 2010s (Time)
  8. - 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (The Book)
  9. - National Book Critics Circle Award - Fiction (National Book Critics Circle)
  10. - The 50 Books Everyone Needs to Read, 1963-2013 (Flavor Wire)

Buy This Book

Name Binding Sales Rank Lowest New Lowest Used Published
A Visit from the Goon Squad [Deckle Edge] 1st (first) edition Text Only Hardcover 3011464 $17.25 $15.06
The Candy House: A Novel Audible Audiobook 166294 $20.67 2022
Egan, Jennifer's A Visit from the Goon Squad Paperback Paperback 82384 $9.49 $4.89 2011
Visit from the Goon Squad Paperback 2983661 $42.29 $0.47 2011
A Visit from the Goon Squad Kindle Edition 9342 $8.59 2010
A Visit from the Goon Squad Hardcover 432831 $19.00 $1.89 2010
A Visit from the Goon Squad Mass Market Paperback 248826 $2.53 2011
A Visit from the Goon Squad Audio CD 870603 $9.15 $8.88 2010
A Visit from the Goon Squad Paperback 1923658 $9.12 $0.01 2011
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Chinese Edition) Paperback 8909472 $24.49 $4.50 2012
The Candy House: A Novel (Visit from the Goon Squad, 2) Hardcover 52101 $27.00 2022
A Visit from the Goon Squad (Chinese Edition) Hardcover 12518215 $24.43 $4.50 2012
A Visit From the Goon Squad Paperback 4214457 $11.94 $10.75 2012
A Visit from the Goon Squad Paperback 4806841 $7.34 $0.26 2011
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Egan, Jennifer (1st (first) Edition) [Paperback(2011)] Paperback 6489268 $14.76 $6.93 2011
A Visit from the Goon Squad   [VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD 8D] [Compact Disc] CD-ROM 7351940 $23.73 $8.56 2010
A Visit from the Goon Squad Publisher: AudioGO; Unabridged edition Audio CD 4424852 $2.81 $2.69 2009
A Visit from the Goon Squad Paperback 4671 $9.51 $1.50 2011