In Jennifer Egan’s world, time is not experienced in a linear fashion. “I experience it in layers that seem to coexist.” This manifestation of life is clearly reflected in her 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Visit from the Goon Squad and its 2022 companion The Candy House. They are novels or collections of short stories; interrelated stories, intersecting key characters, and shifting times and locations. Both books tell the story from different personal perspectives, as well as entire chapters in PowerPoint and tweets. Rock and roll pervades Goon Squad, whereas social media is the cosmos of Candy House. Let’s start with Candy House, since reading the new book inspired this post. I’ll also take a look at an entirely different third novel of hers.
The Candy House (2022)
Much has been written about the perils, pitfalls, and societal impact of social media and the Internet. One of the best is David Egger’s The Circle, in which a young woman volunteers to live-stream her daily life at her Google-like campus where ratings define status (in 2013 this scenario was still a little far-fetched). Egan cranks up the volume to the latest Internet-driven and image-fixated tool for society: “Own Your Unconscious” where your mind is externalized, and your life’s memories revisited whenever you want…and the lifetimes of memories of anyone else in the system. The title is a metaphor for temptation (Hansel and Gretel and the wicked witch’s gingerbread trap), “tongue-in-cheek nostalgia is merely the portal, the Candy House, if you will, through which we hope to lure in a new generation and bewitch them.” No one can resist immediate access to their memories, or to those of their friends and family. What could go wrong?
While the influence of social media on society is fascinating (and sometimes abhorrent), I wasn’t quite as engaged in The Candy House as I was with Goon Squad. That’s partly because the rock and roll world is irresistible for me, but also that the new book doesn’t read quite as finished or coherent. The non-linear approach was a little tiresome after a spell. The tweets and epistolary chapters are long and maybe a little gimmicky, but upon further reflection, the 50 pages of an email thread were ingenious. The Candy House stands alone, although some characters hark back to Goon Squad. It’s a quick read (about 300 pages) with some witty dark humor.
D² Rating ◼◼◼☐☐
A Visit from the Goon Squad (2011)
“How did I go from being a rock star to being a fat fuck no one cares about?” So goes the life of an aging rock star in a business all about youth. Bennie Salazar, record producer, and his assistant Sasha are the hub of thirteen interrelated stories of self-destructive behavior as the characters grow older and explore new unexpected directions. Chapters shift in time from the 1970s to the near future and take place mainly in NYC, but also San Francisco, Italy, and Kenya.
Rock nerds will love the PowerPoint chapter, entitled “Great Rock and Roll Pauses.” Those memorable song moments of short silence are well represented: “Foxey Lady,” “Young Americans,” “Supervixen,” “Long Train Runnin’,” “Roxanne,” and “Good Times, Bad Times.” Several charts summarize the results. It’s the highlight of an audacious and clever book. Funny, too. The fictional punk band is The Flaming Dildos.
D² Rating ◼◼◼◼☐
Manhattan Beach (2017)
And now for something completely different…historical fiction set in New York during the Depression and World War II. Anna and her father Eddie Kerrigan meet gangster Dexter Styles in 1934. Eddie has been working as a bagman for low level criminals and begins to work directly for Styles. Anna becomes the first woman diver at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and undertakes underwater repairs. Egan’s description of life in Brooklyn in the early ’40s and Anna’s experience wearing 35 lb. shoes and 200 lb. suits while diving is enthralling. Years later Anna runs into Styles and starts pursuing him as a link to her now missing father. The writing is atmospheric and cinematic (book noir), as it weaves through romance, nighttime NYC, and the lure of the sea. It’s a sprawling work maybe lacking cohesion and purposely incomplete in some plot lines. Overall, it’s a compelling story about life during wartime.
D² Rating ◼◼◼◩☐
Trivia: “Goon Squad” is also the name of a song by what English singer-songwriter?
Answer: Elvis Costello (off the 1979 Armed Forces album).