Review: A Visit From the Goon Squad
I have a poster about writing that reads: Make Me Care . And that was the thing missing in A Visit From the Goon Squad : for all of the story, the intricate plots, the interweaving of characters and storylines, I simply didn't care. (I also needed a cheat sheet, there were so many changing characters, especially Bennie's wives.) Jennifer Egan 's book was similar to another Pulitzer Prize-winner, Olive Kitteridge : a series of interconnected short stories — but I did not find it as enjoyable. Egan gave us some interesting, even endearing, characters. And yet: I didn't care. Rob floated into the East River and I wasn't anxious about him. Dolly and Lulu wound up in the home of a crazy dictator and I didn't worry about them. Jules — what exactly was up with that dude? Benny, the Olive of this collection, was a mixed bag: likeable at times, but a weak intersection in this Venn diagram. The story timeline begins, as best as I can tell, ...