The Quiet Place Book Club: ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’ by Jennifer Egan

Join us for the March meeting of The Quiet Place Book Club, where we will discuss A Visit from the Goon Squad (Corsair, 2021) by Jennifer Egan.

Described as “a work of imaginative energy and charm”, *A Visit from the Goon Squad* vividly captures the moments where lives interact, and where fortunes ebb and flow. Egan depicts with elegant prose and often heart-wrenching simplicity, the sad consequences for those who couldn’t fake it during their wild youth — madness, suicide or prison — in this captivating, wryly humourous story of temptation and loss.

"Opening her eyes, she saw the plumber’s tool belt lying on the floor at her feet. It had a beautiful screwdriver in it, the orange translucent handle gleaming like a lollipop in its worn leather loop, the silvery shaft sculpted, sparkling. Sasha felt herself contract around the object in a single yawn of appetite; she needed to hold the screwdriver, just for a minute. She bent her knees and plucked it noiselessly from the belt. Not a bangle jangled; her bony hands were spastic at most things, but she was good at this — made for it, she often thought, in the first drifty moments after lifting something. And, once the screwdriver was in her hand, she felt instant relief from the pain of having an old soft-backed man snuffling under her tub, and then something more than relief: a blessed indifference, as if the very idea of feeling pain over such a thing were baffling."

You can purchase a copy of A Visit from the Goon Squad from Fox Lane Books. Please register in advance for this meeting. 

Everyone is welcome!

Email: amk565@york.ac.uk / kw1408@york.ac.uk