A Visit from the Good Squad was one of those books you feel intimacy with immediately.  I hunkered down to read the first short story and realized an almost effortless rhythm to Egan’s prose.  Each of her narratives, each voice, sounded flawless, and it is the beautiful alternating of characters - always wanting more from each one - that drives the success of this book.  Each story/chapter builds incrementally on the overall development of every character, and the narratives become increasingly unique and framgented as the book progresses. This book made me despair, celebrate- but only at one point did I feel something was off “beat.”

The last chapter/story reminded me of Super Sad True Love Story; it is set in the not so distant future, and everyone is obsessed with technology.  Maybe I just don’t like these types of narratives, but the last chapter was the only one that felt ingenuine, and almost didn’t fit with the rest of the book.  While I loved the characters in the story, I just didn’t find the techy anxiousness compelling.

Posted at 9:47am and tagged with: A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan, lit, book reviews,.