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A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD, published in 2010, is a collection of short stories by Jennifer Egan.
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
“I’m always happy,” Sasha said. “Sometimes I just forget.”
Table of Contents
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD Synopsis
Bennie is an aging former punk rocker and record executive. Sasha is the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Here Jennifer Egan brilliantly reveals their pasts, along with the inner lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs.
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD Analysis Of:
A Visit From the Goon Squad is used as an example in the following posts. Check them out!
| Comparison of Point of View | A comparison of point of view in literature (first, third limited, and omniscient) including modern fiction examples. Which is right for your novel? |
| Third Person Limited Point of View | She, himself and them are examples of third person limited. Learn 4 times you should use 3rd limited for your book. |
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD Book Reviews
I don’t read a lot of short stories. I guess I like the length and depth of a full-novel. A Visit From the Goon Squad feels like a full novel. The stories are interconnected. They relate to each other. The characters are really well-developed and they’re the highlight of the book (at least for me).
I’d recommend A Visit From the Goon Squad but what do others think?
And yet, unlike the fragmented, seemingly unconnected world of the Shuffle, where randomization is celebrated over construction, A Visit from the Goon Squad reads as a whole, as tight as the pickup on a single-coil Fender, locked and loaded.
– Fiction Writers Review
Egan’s tone is cunning; there’s something eternal about her teenagers, one of whom – Bennie – will become the producer whose story threads throughout the book.
– Sonora Review
I found Goon Squad only “good enough” as opposed to “as good as it could be.”
– The Nervous Breakdown
A Visit from the Good Squad is one of those works that dispels the myth that real literature isn’t written any more.
– Unobtrusive Lucidity
Writing Practice
Check out these writing exercises and prompts inspired by A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD.
Prompt: The Opening Paragraph(s)
This is the opening paragraph of the novel. Ignore everything you know about the story and use it as a writing prompt.
Your Task: Using as much detail as possible, write another 300+ words.
1: Found Objects
It began the usual way, in the bathroom of the Lassimo Hotel. Sasha was adjusting her yellow eye shadow in the mirror when she noticed a bag on the floor beside the sink that must have belonged to the woman whose peeing she could faintly hear through the vaultlike door of a toilet stall. Inside the rim of the bag, barely visible, was a wallet made of pale green leather. It was easy for Sasha to recognize, looking back, that the peeing woman’s blind trust had provoked her: We live in a city where people will steal the hair off your head if you give them half a chance, but you leave your stuff lying in plain sight and expect it to be waiting for you when you come back? It made her want to teach the woman a lesson. But this wish only camouflaged the deeper feeling Sasha always had: that fat, tender wallet, offering itself to her hand—it seemed so dull, so life-as-usual to just leave it there rather than seize the moment, accept the challenge, take the leap, fly the coop, throw caution to the wind, live dangerously (“I get it,” Coz, her therapist, said), and take the fucking thing.
Exercise: Rewrite
Your Task: Choose your favorite story and rewrite it from a different point of view (first to third or third to first).
Think about it:
- How does this story fit into the overall book?
- How does a different point of view change that?
- Why do you think Jennifer Egan chose to write some stories in first and some stories in third?
Bonus Challenge: Do more than one story!
A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD Facts
Love it? Hate it? Somewhere in Between?
Have you read A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD?
If so, what did you think? If not, will you?
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PS. share your exercises in the comments below. I’d love to see them.
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