Description
Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an ageing former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the troubled young woman he employs. We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her longstanding compulsion to steal. We meet Bennie at the melancholy nadir of his adult life – divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed-up band in the basement of a suburban house.
Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in many places.
With music pulsing on every page, this is a startling, exhilarating novel of self-destruction and redemption. Breathtaking work from one of our boldest writers.
Book Review: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/mar/13/jennifer-egan-visit-goon-squad
