How long is it?
368 pages in the Anchor 2011 paperback edition.
Fiction · Novel · Short Stories · Literary Fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad
Highly regardedPulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2011Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 61 / 100High
- Length
- 368 pagesAnchor · 2011
- Reading time
- 7 h 15 minat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Variable
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 7 h 15 min · at 30 minutes a day, about 15 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Bennie Salazar, a former punk musician turned New York record executive, and his assistant Sasha connect a circle of friends, lovers, and colleagues stretching back to 1970s San Francisco. Bennie struggles with his career and family life, while Sasha discusses her compulsive stealing with a therapist. Their intersecting histories trace ambitions, damaged relationships, and the changes in an industry built around youth.
Reader notes
Thirteen linked stories jump between decades and narrators, moving peripheral characters into the foreground; one unfolds as a PowerPoint presentation. The literary fiction moves between sharp comedy and melancholy, with drug use and sexual abuse among its darker subjects. Following the connections requires attention, and the book offers a succession of lives rather than one continuous plot.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Experimental · Fragmentary · Lyrical · Witty
- Tone
- Melancholic · Reflective · Satirical · Wistful
- Structure
- Fragmented · Linked collection · Multiple timelines
- Collection
- Episodic · Linked
- Driven by
- Character · Ideas · Relationships
- Point of view
- Multiple viewpoints
- Setting
- Italy · Kenya · New York City · San Francisco
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 4 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 5 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 1 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Addiction
- Aging
- Art and creativity
- Family
- Friendship
- Memory
Content notes
- Violence
- Mild
- Sexual content
- Strong
- Swearing
- Strong
- Substance use
- Strong
- Abuse
- Strong
- Self-harm or suicide
- Mild
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2011
- National Book Critics Circle Award, 2010
- Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, 2010
- International Dublin Literary Award shortlist, 2012
- PEN/Faulkner Award shortlist, 2011
- NYT 10 Best Books, 2010
- Pulitzer Prize — Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, 2011
- National Book Critics Circle Award — National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, 2010
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Anchor · 2011 · Paperback. ISBN 9780307477477.
How long does it take to read A Visit from the Goon Squad?
About 7 hours 15 minutes at 50 pages an hour, based on the 368-page Anchor edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Jennifer Egan
Jennifer Egan is an American novelist and short-story writer whose career also encompasses journalism for The New York Times Magazine. Her fiction moves readily between linked narratives, historical fiction, and experiments shaped by new media. A Visit from the Goon Squad follows a dispersed network of characters across decades and includes a chapter composed as a PowerPoint presentation; Candy House returns to interconnected lives while imagining technology that makes memory searchable and shareable. By contrast, Manhattan Beach uses the atmosphere and social constraints of wartime Brooklyn to frame its characters’ ambitions and loyalties. Across these different modes, Egan is drawn to the pressure of time on relationships, the instability of memory, and the ways institutions and technologies enter private life. Shifting perspectives and structures allow her to show individuals as parts of larger, changing networks. What distinguishes her work is the close fit between method and subject: formal invention is used to test how experience is organized, communicated, and remembered.
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Edition and details
- Publisher
- Anchor
- Publication year
- 2011
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 368
- ISBN
- 9780307477477
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2010
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Short Stories · Literary Fiction · Music · Literary fiction · Contemporary literary · Experimental fiction
- Editions
- 16
- Languages
- 4 (English, Spanish, Unspecified, Chinese)