A Visit From the Goon Squad (2010) (edit title/settings)

Summary edit

Write a summary of the plot or a synopsis of this book.

Characters/People edit see section history

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• Bennie Salazar: Record producer going through some serious rich male existential crisis. We find out more about his rise to the top and his past in the San Francisco punk scene.
• Sasha Grady Blake: Bennie's right hand woman. She is a kleptomaniac.
• Lou Kline: A record producer in the late 1970s
• Alex: Has encounters with Sasha at the beginning of the book and Bennie at the end
• Stephanie Jones Salazar: Bennie Salazars ex-wife. Once a big time PR lady.
• Rolph: Lou's son, and favorite, idealistic, quiet, attuned to the natural world.
• Lulu Peale: Daughter of Dolly (La Doll).
• Scotty Hausmann: A childhood friend of Benny's, who plays the slide guitar. They were both in love with the same girl but Scotty ended up with her.
• Bosco: Former great musician, now fat, aging and ailing. Wants Stephanie and Jules to document his "comeback".
• Charlie: Lou's daughter Charlene, but prefers to be called Charlie. She works to get Lou's attention by flirting with some of the black dancers.
• Jocelyn: Member of Bennie's punk group ca. 1979 who first becomes involved with Lou.
• Jules Jones: Stephanie's brother that moves in with her and Bennie in Crandale. He was on track to become a journalist and goes to prison for kidnapping Kitty Jackson
• Chris: Chris is Bennie's 9 year old son who lives with his mother in a posh, leafy suburb.
• Mindy: Lou's Girlfriend that he takes to Africa, and she is a graduate student at Berkley. She later becomes his wife and mother of two of his six children.
• Albert: An Englishman that drives Lou and his crew on the safari. He is Ramsey's second in command.
• Drew Blake: Sasha's college boyfriend at NYU originally from Wisconsin. Becomes a doctor.
• Rebecca: Alex' wife and Cara-Ann's mother.
• Alice: Beautiful member of Bennie's punk group, who Bennie loves.
• Rhea: Freckled member of Bennie's punk rock group, Jocelyn's friend.
• Kitty Jackson: An actress who was once interviewed by Jules.
• Ted Hollander: Sasha's unclue that searched for her in Naples. He's an art professor.
• Susan Hollander: Ted's wife. She's in real estate.
• Dolly Peale: Known as La Doll, she is Stephanie's boss in the PR world. The mother of Lulu.
• Kathy: Stephanie's faux friend in Crandale, NY, whom she plays tennis with; is married to Clay "Cardboard", a racist snob.
• Lincoln Blake: One of Sasha's children. He is slightly autistic.
• Robert Freeman Jr.: Known as Rob. He loved Sasha.
• Lizzie: Sasha's college roommate and friend.
• Beth: Sasha's mom.
• Noreen: Bennie and Stephanie's neighbor in Crandale. She is not socially accepted, and people think she is crazy.
• Cora: Lou's travel agent that is on the African trip
• Ramsey: An old Army buddy of Lou's that is starting up a safari company in Africa.
• Lars: A Swedish guy that played a flute who Sasha worked for while in Naples.
• Chronos: A bassist for the Mad Hatters, one of Lou's bands, and took part in a safari trip in Kenya with Lou.
• Janet Green: Jules' girlfriend who dumps him before he met Kitty.
• Coz: Sasha's therapist
• Bix: A college friend of Drew and Sasha's. He is dating Lizzie. Her parents wouldn't approve because he is black.
• Hammer: Sasha's step-father
• Alison Blake: Sasha's daughter. Sasha calls her "Ally".
• Rebecca: Alex' wife she's working on a PhD
• Cara-Ann: Alex and Rebecca's daugther
• Collette: a music producer who works for Bennie; a minor character
• Natasha: Add a description of this character.
• Wade
• Andy Grady
• Abby
• James
• Joe Rees
• Fiona
• Louise
• Louisa
• Dean
• Sammy
• Dr. Beet
• Alfred
• Joel
• Bill Duff
• Olivia
• Miss Peale
• Atticus Levi
• Dave
• Marty
• Nixon
• Chandra
• Mother Superior
• Mildred
• Robert Jr

Quotes edit see section history

• ““The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn’t really over, so you’re relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.””

  Sasha Grady

• “Sasha no longer took anything from stores--their cold, inert goods didn't tempt her. Only from people.”

  (author)

• “He drew back and looked at his son. The baby he and Stephanie had nuzzled and kissed--now this painful, mysterious presence.”

  author

• “Kissing Mother Superior is my favorite," Sasha said. "We've gotta find a way to use that one.”

  Sasha Grady

• “No one is waiting for me. In this story, I'm the girl no one is waiting for. Usually the girl is fat, but my problem is more rare, which is freckles: I look like someone threw handfuls of mud at my face.”

  Rhea

• “Everybody sounds stoned, because they're e-mailing people the whole time they're talking to you."”

• “I can't tell if she's actually real, or if she's stopped caring if she's real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?”

  Rhea

• “If I had a view like this to look down on every day, I would have the energy and inspiration to conquer the world. The trouble is, when you most need such a view, no one gives it to you.”

  Scotty Hausmann

• “I deposited my fish on the glass coffee table next to the magazines and settled into a black leather couch.”

  Scotty Hausmann

• “It may be that a crowd at a particular moment in history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Time’s a goon, right? Isn’t that the expression?”

  Highlighted by 405 Kindle customers

• one key ingredient of so-called experience is the delusional faith that it is unique and special, that those included in it are privileged and those excluded from it are missing out.

  Highlighted by 277 Kindle customers

• Structural Dissatisfaction: Returning to circumstances that once pleased you, having experienced a more thrilling or opulent way of life, and finding that you can no longer tolerate them.

  Highlighted by 244 Kindle customers

• The problem was precision, perfection; the problem was digitization, which sucked the life out of everything that got smeared through its microscopic mesh. Film, photography, music: dead. An aesthetic holocaust!

  Highlighted by 212 Kindle customers

• I felt no shame whatsoever in these activities, because I understood what almost no one else seemed to grasp: that there was only an infinitesimal difference, a difference so small that it barely existed except as a figment of the human imagination, between working in a tall green glass building on Park Avenue and collecting litter in a park. In fact, there may have been no difference at all.

  Highlighted by 210 Kindle customers

• “Time’s a goon, right? You gonna let that goon push you around?” Scotty shook his head. “The goon won.”

  Highlighted by 199 Kindle customers

• own—they were writing a story of redemption, of fresh beginnings and second chances. But in that direction lay only sorrow.

  Highlighted by 167 Kindle customers

• I can’t tell if she’s actually real, or if she’s stopped caring if she’s real or not. Or is not caring what makes a person real?

  Highlighted by 136 Kindle customers

• There’s a fine line between thinking about somebody and thinking about not thinking about somebody, but I have the patience and the self-control to walk that line for hours—days, if I have to.

  Highlighted by 126 Kindle customers

• In fact the whole apartment, which six years ago had seemed like a way station to some better place, had ended up solidifying around Sasha, gathering mass and weight, until she felt both mired in it and lucky to have it—as if she not only couldn’t move on but didn’t want to.

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Setting & Locations edit see section history

• Naples
• San Francisco
• Central Park
• Wisconsin
• Washington Square
• Berkeley
• Manhattan
• Mombasa

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Preceded by Tinkers.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Jennifer Egan (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2010: Fiction)
• National Book Critics Circle Award (2010: Fiction)
• Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (2010: Top Ten)
• Orange Prize for Fiction (Finalist, 2011, Longlist)
• Pulitzer Prize (2011: Fiction)
• PEN/Faulkner Award (Finalist, 2011: Fiction)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: PS3555.G292 V57 2010
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

Adult language and situations.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Short Stories

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

• Jennifer Egan's Website
• OpenCulture: Video - Jennifer Egan, Pulitzer Prize Winner, Talks Writing @Google