Journal Entry 1 by ReetPetite from Beeston, Nottinghamshire United Kingdom on Saturday, September 03, 2011

Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding novel circles the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa. We first meet Sasha in her mid-thirties, on her therapist’s couch in New York City, confronting her longstanding compulsion to steal. Later, we learn the genesis of her turmoil when we see her as the child of a violent marriage, then a runaway living in Naples, then as a college student trying to avert the suicidal impulses of her best friend. We meet Bennie Salazar at the melancholy nadir of his adult life—divorced, struggling to connect with his nine-year-old son, listening to a washed up band in the basement of a suburban house—and then revisit him in 1979, at the height of his youth, shy and tender, reveling in San Francisco’s punk scene as he discovers his ardor for rock and roll and his gift for spotting talent. We learn what became of his high school gang—who thrived and who faltered—and we encounter Lou Kline, Bennie’s catastrophically careless mentor, along with the lovers and children left behind in the wake of Lou’s far flung sexual conquests and meteoric rise and fall. A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to Powerpoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

NSS prezzie for the BC Uncon. Enjoy :) 

Journal Entry 2 by safrolistics at Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, Northumberland United Kingdom on Friday, September 23, 2011

Received at the Nottingham UnCon 

Journal Entry 3 by safrolistics at Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, Northumberland United Kingdom on Friday, November 11, 2011

On the whole I enjoyed this, but because I took so long to read it (baby keeps me pretty occupied) I lost track of who was who.... not the books fault of course.
I really enjoyed the last chapter, and the vision of the future, where all music has to be child friendly, as they are the ones who buy it. And the theory that all children go through a German phase tickled me.
Not sure where I shall send this book next...... 

Journal Entry 4 by safrolistics at Newbiggin Maritime Centre in Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, Northumberland United Kingdom on Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Released 1 mo ago (4/18/2012 UTC) at Newbiggin Maritime Centre in Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, Northumberland United Kingdom

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

To be left on the bookshelf just inside the cafe. 

Journal Entry 5 by AnonymousFinder at Newbiggin-By-The-Sea, Northumberland United Kingdom on Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Just begun it and finding it fascinating. At 80 and too preoccupied with working and bringing up children i let the rock and roll scene plus pass me by so it is good to realise something of the lives of these people.