The Independent (UK), 3/13/11
“The sparky disconnect between generations is sometimes rewired with brief but joyful connections.”
Reviews
The Guardian (UK), 3/13/11
“This is a difficult book to summarise, but a delight to read, gradually distilling a medley out of its polyphonic, sometimes deliberately cacophonous voices.”
Slate.com, 12/8/11
“Goon Squad is intricately crafted, wildly imaginative, and written with verve and grace…Give it to the superannuated goth in your life.”
The New Republic, 12/1/11
“It ends in the same place as it starts, except that everything has changed, including you, the reader.”
The New York Review of Books, 11/11/11
Reviewed by Cathleen Schine
“Jennifer Egan’s new novel is a moving humanistic saga, an enormous nineteenth-century-style epic brilliantly disguised as ironic postmodern pastiche.”
Austin American Statesman, 10/13/11
“This is art at its best — as a bulwark against the goon, as it embodies everything at once.”
The Record: Music News from NPR, 8/17/11
The Novelist’s Advantage: Great Books About Music
The National (Abu Dhabi), 8/5/11
“Egan, too, has been swiftly, silently mounting an assault on the highest reaches of American fiction, beginning with early works like The Invisible Circus and Look at Me, and her remarkable 2006 novel The Keep. The Keep was a refreshing hybrid of postmodern playfulness and classical storytelling, and Goon Squad maintains its predecessor’s experimental daring while dramatically expanding its emotional reach.”
The National Post (Canada), 7/17/11
“Jennifer Egan’s stunning fourth novel, A Visit from the Goon Squad, is a collection of linked stories that don’t follow a conventional narrative structure but works beautifully because she takes chances that succeed.”
The Globe and Mail, 7/16/11
“In her brash beauty of a novel, Jennifer Egan understands the power of shame, simply because it makes one present in the moment as effectively as fear or desire.”
New York Times Book Review (cover review), 7/11/11
“Remarkable…Is there anything Egan can’t do?”
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/27/11
“Ms. Egan’s concept is seductive, and her judicious marshalling of the right details of our contemporary life reveal a writer’s peripheral vision that sees the whole playing field.”
Bookotron, 6/28/11
“‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ is first and foremost, fun and startlingly engaging to read.”
Kansas City Star, 6/27/11
“For all its sensory richness, social and psychological insights and brilliant layering of ideas and commentary, Egan’s time-bending tale is laced with suspense and punctuated by emotional ambushes of profound resonance.”
Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 6/27/11
“The effect over 13 chapters is that of a collage, choral work or puzzle, reminiscent of Faulkner’s “As I Lay Dying,” or Robert Altman’s ensemble films.”
Time Magazine, 6/28/11
“It’s as if the author has taken an epic novel covering five decades and expertly filleted it, casting aside excess characters and years to come away with a narrative that is wide-ranging but remarkably focused.”
People Magazine, 6/28/11
“Egan introduces a dizzying array of characters…but it all makes brilliant sense in the end. A thought-provoking examination of how and why we change–and what change and constancy mean in a Facebook–era world where ‘the days of losing touch are almost gone.'”
The New York Times, 6/21/11
“Whether this tough, uncategorizable work of fiction is a novel, a collection of carefully arranged interlocking stories or simply a display of Ms. Egan’s extreme virtuosity, the same characters pop up in different parts of it.”
The Miami Herald, 6/20/11
“A Visit from the Goon Squad flares into flamboyant life. It mulls the sort of big-picture ideas good novels ought to ponder.”
The Boston Globe, 6/20/11
“Readers of her three previous novels and story collection have already discovered Egan’s unique sensibility and style, which defy easy classification and which some newcomers may find disorienting. Others will come away exhilarated and pleasantly breathless from the unpredictable ride.”
The Dallas Morning News, 6/20/11
“Egan takes a risk on an unusual structure and succeeds in moving the story forward while offering a welcome surprise.”
Bookotron, 6/12/11
“Jennifer Egan is back with ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad,’ a brilliant and brilliantly enjoyable novel that manages to use the tropes of experimental fiction in a manner that make the book grippingly intense, funny, and endlessly enjoyable to read.”
Read the Review/Listen to a Podcast discussion between Rick Kleffel and Alan Cheuse
Washington Post, 6/16/11
“If Jennifer Egan is our reward for living through the self-conscious gimmicks and ironic claptrap of postmodernism, then it was all worthwhile.”