A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)

07/30/2010

A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)

Jennifer Egan's latest novel, 'A Visit from the Goon Squad' is structured like a series of short stories in which characters make brief appearances in one chapter and then resurface as central figures in the next. Many of the stories ultimately touch on the lives of a middle-aged rock executive and a woman who works for him at one point, but there are many more characters who make brief and always intriguing (and sometimes hilarious and sometimes tragic) appearances throughout the work. Themes of music and art (and the evolution and devolution of both) and the passage of time (and love and sex and death) help to connect the dots here, which gives the book a weight that belies its superficially breezy (and sometimes sleazy) subject matter; to read it is like peering into a small well, only to be hypnotized by its magically infinite depth and constantly mutating waters.

Egan uses an array of narrative "tricks" -- e.g., changing tenses and voices -- a technique that would risk wearing thin if she were not such a good storyteller, with the ability to draw you in to each chapter with just a few details. I think it's fair to say that there has never been (and probably never will be) a chapter told via PowerPoint as poignant and heartbreaking as the one appearing in this book. Egan is also able to move convincingly between a startling array of viewpoints in terms of gender, gay/straight, every age, locations around the world, etc. (Although the fabric of the city is probably the most important in this latter regard.)

Reading this book I felt like a fish; every time Egan cast out a shiny lure, I would bite, and she would reel me in before unhooking and throwing me back into the water for a few seconds, where the process would begin anew.

Posted at 08:25 PM in Expression, Reaction | Permalink

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#gods

ORDER HERE

A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH, AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE

A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later, now working as a New York City homicide detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient civilization of gods and the people determined to bring them back.

In this colossal new novel from the author of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest into the nature of faith and resistance in the modern world. With each turn of the page, #gods will leave you increasingly reborn.

Praise for #gods

“#gods is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of gay literature—it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance.” —Mark Doten, author of The Infernal

“Matthew Gallaway’s #gods is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous things, I couldn’t stop writing OMG WTF I <3 THIS SO MUCH in its margins. It’s rare to find a novel that so dazzlingly reinvigorates age-old meditations on faith and f&!*ing, art and eros. Luminous, enterprising, and sublimely cheeky, #gods tells the story, the myth, the dream of the human soul in all its glorious complexity.” —Suzanne Morrison, author of Yoga Bitch

“Matthew Gallaway’s storytelling manages to be both dreamy and serious; lean and luxurious. His words carry an incantatory power of mythic storytelling where beauty and savagery wrap around each other like bright threads in a gorgeous tapestry.” —Natasha Vargas-Cooper, author of Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America

“If the ancient gods were just like us, only more so, then the same could be said for this strange, wonderful book, in which the mundane sorrows and small triumphs of very ordinary lives glow ever so slightly around the edges, sometimes quite literally. At once an oddly romantic send-up of dead-end office culture and an offbeat supernatural procedural, #gods is terrifically weird, melancholy, sexy, and charming.” —Jacob Bacharach, author of The Bend of the World

The Metropolis Case

'It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.'

-- The New York Times

Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine

Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.

Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past

Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.

Video: The Chaos Detective

The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.

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07/30/2010

A Visit from the Goon Squad (Jennifer Egan)

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