A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Back in 1964, the Rolling Stones sang, "Time is on my side." A character in Jennifer Egan's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel says, "Time is a goon." (Webster's definition--a man hired to terrorize; an enforcer.)

This is a book about time and about what it does to people and to the culture and to rock and roll! It's a series of glimpses into the interconnected lives of many characters over a period of about 40 years. Every chapter could be a stand-alone short story, but, taken together, they tell the story of...well--time, and people, and culture, and rock and roll.

Almost every character mentioned reappears in another character's story, so that the stories all weave together. But the reader has to pay close attention to names and time clues, because the chapters are not in chronological order. Thus, chapter 1 is about Sasha at age 35, chapter 2 mentions Sasha at a little younger age, chapter 10 is about Sasha at age 21, chapter 11 is about Sasha at age 19 or 20, and chapter 12 has Sasha in her late 40s. I imagine some people will grow irritated at all this jumping around, but then "Time is a goon," isn't it.

The last two chapters are set in the future, and the next-to-last one is a power point diary! The last chapter pictures a time when people are uncomfortable talking to each other and prefer to text-message even when face-to-face, when four-year-olds determine the music that is produced, and when paid "parrots" can generate enthusiasm about almost anything,over the internet. The character Alex is paid to choose among his 15,896 friends to find 50 who have need, reach, and corruptibility and will go along with his scheme for promoting a concert--people who have "stopped being themselves without realizing it."

All of this review makes the book sound like it is incoherent, but it isn't. It is so well done that the parts make sense, the time-shifts make sense, the different narrative viewpoints make sense. It is very funny in some parts. Even an attempted rape, the "Suicide Tour" of an aging rocker, and the public relations campaign for a genocidal dictator come off as humorous (and that's not easy to do). It is very depressing in some parts: one character wants to ask Lou, the aging rock producer, "How did you get so old? Was it all at once, in a day, or did you peter out bit by bit?.... Did you know this was coming and hide that you knew, or did it ambush you from behind." Now that's depressing.

But time can also be redemptive, and people and the culture and the environment and rock and roll can improve and bounce back from really low places. And that makes this novel very hopeful.

Several fairly recent books I have lately read utilize the format of interconnected short stories: Cloud Atlas(David Mitchell), Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri), and Olive Kitteridge (Elizabeth Strout). Maybe this is a trend, but Jennifer Egan does the best job of making the parts into a coherent whole.

This novel is highly recommended. It is inventive, has well-developed and believable characters, has something important to say. and most of all, it's fun to read.

I wonder if Mick Jagger still thinks that time is on his side.