Week 7.2: Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan (b. 1962) is the author A Visit From the Goon Squad, which won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the LA Times Book Prize. Egan's novel consists of a series of interrelated short stories that document the lives of people involved in the music industry. The short stories date back from the 1970s to the near future.

Reading:
Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad, 3-38

Study Questions: 
1. What strikes you as significant or interesting about the text? Why? Bring in two passages from the first two chapters you think are important.

2. How does the second chapter speak to issues of technology and media?  

3. In Understanding Rhetoric chapter two the authors discuss how to read strategically and to annotate. How do you typically like to annotate books? How will you annotate this one? You will have to show me your annotations today, and while I won't check your annotations for the rest of the semester, I do hope that you keep up with them. You will have to write a paper on this novel after all.

4. Begin to keep a map of how all the characters are related in the novel. Update it as we read. I will collect this with your working draft.