COVER STORY

A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

For when: Your rebel yell goes hoarse

by Rodney Anonymous

Published: Jun 16, 2010


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Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad would have worked quite nicely as a collection of short stories (which is really what the world really needs right about now). Sure, it wouldn't have exactly been on par with Flannery O'Connor's Everything That Rises Must Converge, but with Egan's considerable gifts for constructing interesting, quirky characters and her skill at capturing the feel of a given time and place, this could have been a tremendously satisfying read.

Instead, the author gives in to the temptation to employ the gimmick of creating fragile links between the characters and moving them about in time and space — allowing a teenager to attend a concert in San Francisco and then, a few chapters later, to be on safari in Africa with his children and new, younger wife. Someone should have told Egan that what worked for Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Slaughter House Five, is not necessarily applicable to a 35-year-old kleptomaniac living in Tribeca. And as for the entire chapter made of Power Point presentations, well, Spinal Tap's Nigel Tufnel hit the nail on the head when he said, "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

Knopf, 288 pp., $25.95, June 8

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