Discussion questions for A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

• Egan says: “I began A Visit from the Goon Squad without a clear plan, following my own curiosity from one character and situation to the next. My guiding rules were only these: 1) Each chapter had to be about a different person. 2) Each chapter had to have a different mood and tone and approach. 3) Each chapter had to stand completely on its own. This last was especially important; since I ask readers to start over repeatedly in A Visit from the Goon Squad, it seemed the least I could do was provide a total experience each time.”  Does she succeed?
• Is this a novel?  A collection of short stories?  A series of linked vignettes?  A novel in stories?  Something else? What do you think about the New York Times reviewer’s comment that: “Whether it is a novel or a collection of linked stories is a matter for the literary accountants to tote up in their ledgers of the inconsequential”?
• Do you feel like there was one character which was the focal point of these stories? If so, who? Why?
• Was there a character you wanted more of?  Less of?
• Why do you believe these stories are arranged out of chronological order? Did that enhance or diminish your reading experience?
• What did you think of Alison’s chapter in PowerPoint?
• The Los Angeles Times reviewer noted that: “Egan has created, instead of an arc, a narrative constellation, one in which Sasha and Bennie have weak gravitational pull. Lou, Rob, Jules, Rolph, Dolly and others each take their star turns.”  What do you think of the idea of a “narrative constellation”?
• The Washington Post reviewer felt that: “some of the unique pleasure of her novel comes from those initial moments of dislocation at the start of each episode”.  Did you like those “initial moments of dislocation” or did you find them more disorienting than pleasurable.
• This book wno the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011.
  1. The Pulitzer committee called it “An inventive investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age, displaying a big-hearted curiosity about cultural change at warp speed.”  Do you agree with this assessment?
  2. Other finalists were The Privileges by Jonathan Dee and The Surrendered, by Chang-rae Lee.  Are you familiar with either of these finalists?  Do you think Goon Squad is worthy of a Pulitzer?

For more questions, check out the publisher’s resources.

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