preview

Visit From The Goon Squad

Decent Essays

I concur with your decision to give the 2011 Pulitzer Prize to A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, as I believe it to be of high literary merit. Not only was the author able to use effective choices to reveal story and character, Egan also told a story that is relevant to American society and shows the connections people make through music and time.

To me, what made this book most fantastic was simply the author’s choice of words and how she was able to reveal so much through about a character’s emotions while never simply stating them. So much power comes in an author’s ability to truly make you feel everything the character does, as this keeps the reader engaged in the story and always want to know more. One of my favorite examples of how Egan does this in A Visit from the Goon Squad is during chapter eight when you learn the story of La Doll, or Dolly, as she rebranded herself to escape the shame of her past mistakes. Her daughter Lulu, a young girl who has grown up with no one but her mother, tagged along on one of Coco's risky business trips to take Kitty Jackson, a washed up actress, to her new fake boyfriend, General B. "Twenty checkpoints presaged their arrival at the general's compound. At each, two soldiers with submachine guns peered into the black Mercedes, where Dolly and Lola and Kitty sat in the backseat. Four times, they were forced outside into the scouring sunshine and patted down at gunpoint. Each time, Dolly scrutinized her daughter's studied

Get Access