The Goon Squad Gets Old

Do Jennifer Egan's tricks still work?

- By Mark Greif. Illustration by TJ Rinoski

In 2010, Jennifer Egan published A Visit From the Goon Squad. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, suggesting esteem among populists and highbrows alike. Commentators praised its combination of technical virtuosity—the intricate cogs and wheels that connected plotlines across time and geography—and sentimental heart, a wistful emotional atmosphere piped in like a gas to keep the mechanism from rusting.

Racing back and forth in time (between the 1970s and the 2020s), the book found its center in the chastened view from middle age. The chapters took the protagonists from their 40s— when they were already in decline after appearing on the culture's radar as moguls, musicians, publicists, journalists influential in the recording industry—to their hopeful beginnings in high-school-band rehearsals and college-dorm musings. The effect was to accentuate the melancholic gap between ambition and actuality.

The puzzle-box precision in the ordering of chapters—and the narrative medley, varying past and present tense, first and third and even second person-turned an ordinary generational portrait into a mosaic. Glimpses of the main action through of minor characters (some deranged, some children) supplied the glue.