It's unusual for a book to get the same kind of pre-release press that a movie does. Books don't have a limited theatre engagement and they rarely, if ever, spawn a merchendising frenzy (unless they are Twilight and/or books made into movies). But every year there's a couple that stand out, usually because they are big name authors or because the author has taken so long to write something new. Because a book takes more time to read than it takes to watch a movie, I usually feel pretty smug after reading the current "it" book (like Netherland, or, A Gate At The Stairs). Since Freedom hadn't been released yet, I was stuck reading A Visit From the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan.
Reading the reviews I knew that Egan had taken her time to deliver a near multi-media event-- layers of time, voices and even a penultimate chapter in PowerPoint (surprisingly effective). Sure, the book was just challenging enough, but it also read really quickly, not unlike the power punk songs Benny and his friends played at the beginning of the book. Egan took stock stereotypes (drug addled wannabe musicians and the groupies that follow them) and turned them inside out, revealing parents, children and even countries making them become real people. If we can't identify with Sasha as a messed up runaway, maybe we empathize with her as a mother of two kids who lost her best friend in college and never got over it.
I hope A Visit from the Goon Squad is more than a flash in the pan--it, and Ms. Egan- -deserve to be read and respected. 5/5 netflix stars.
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