Looking Back at ‘A Visit from the Goon Squad’

Ten years ago, Jennifer Egan published “A Visit from the Goon Squad,” which went on to win the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. “A Visit from the Goon Squad” consists of thirteen chapters that are very different from one another in mood and style, each with its own protagonist; but unlike a short story collection, the chapters and characters are all interconnected in a structural spiderweb, coming together to tell a single story — a story about technology and the music industry. At the center of Egan’s web is a music producer named Benny Salazar and his assistant Sasha. The other stories radiate out from that central core, visiting peripheral characters in Benny and Sasha’s past and future lives.

“A Visit from the Goon Squad” spans fifty years, jumping back and forth in time, from the 1970s to an imagined version of the 2020s. In fact, time itself is practically a character in Egan’s book, constantly reshaping characters, the music industry, and technology. “Time’s a goon, right?” asks Benny Salazar, giving the book its name. Given that “A Visit from the Goon Squad” is a book about time that tried to predict American life in 2020, it deserves to be revisited in 2020, ten years after its publication.

“The problem is it’s not about sound anymore. It’s not about music,” vents an exasperated Bennie Salazar in the final chapter of “A Visit from the Goon Squad.” Over the course of the book, Jennifer Egan traces the shifting mindset of the music industry, from the rebellious rock ‘n’ roll of the 70s, when music was the heartbeat of sex and drugs and iconoclasm, to a futuristic, technologically-run music industry obsessed with money. In Egan’s version of the 2020s, Bennie is able to draw thousands of people to his friend Scotty Hausmann’s concert using social media — without Scotty ever having released a single song. As people are flocking to Scotty’s concert, they’re all telling each other how Scotty Hausmann is supposed to be great live, even though none of them have ever seen him perform.

For these blind sheep, the people of Egan’s 2020, it is not about the sound or the message or the soul of the music. Concert-going is a fad. The music must be good because their “headset” told them so (Jennifer Egan envisioned all this before the release of the iPhone). The music must be good because their internet friend said so. Benny’s team hypes up Scotty Hausmann by targeting and hiring specific online presences as “parrots,” who promote the concert to their social media followers.

In real life 2020, targeted ads on Facebook and Instagram play a huge role in the music industry. Artists and their record labels can choose exactly which demographic to try to pitch their music to. A new singer-songwriter who sounds just like Taylor Swift and dresses goth can run ads on Instagram that are only shown to goth teenage girls who are fans of Taylor Swift, thus garnering thousands of fans in a matter of days. In line with Egan’s prediction, the music that is popular is often determined by large avaricious record labels. Individual taste is trumped or exploited by online ad campaigns.

Not only does “A Visit from the Goon Squad” predict the effects of technology on art and the music industry, but also technology’s effects on politics. Egan writes that words like “American” and “democracy” become ironic in the 2020s, “shucked of their meanings and reduced to husks.” When institutions can pay to subliminally sway the minds of the American public through social media, elections become a game of money. Democracy is dead because votes are bought through advertisement. As Egan predicted, American democracy was called into question as early as the 2016 election, with talk of Russian interference.

In the 2020 presidential race, young voters, who are generally more liberal, are bombarded by advertisements paid for by the Democratic Party to “Go vote!” while the Republican Party pays to send the same message to the older, more conservative generation. Whether we like it or not, technology has given institutions the power to sway the opinions of the public, both artistic and political.

If artistic opinion can be manipulated by large companies, where does that leave the arts? If social media can make Scotty Hausmann a rock star overnight without any songs, is the passion that fueled the rock ‘n’ roll of the 70s dead? Jennifer Egan gives us a hopeful message at the story’s end. In the final chapter, Scotty Hausmann’s concert is a success — not because of social media, but because of the music itself. The thousands gathered around the stage are moved by Scotty’s “ballads of paranoia and disconnection.”

As technology continues to disrupt and divide, art and music retain the power to affirm us and to reunite us. One of the stories in “A Visit from the Goon Squad” is about a boy who is obsessed with finding pauses within songs. His dad asks him why he is so obsessed with the pauses, and the boy answers, “The pause makes you think the song will end. And then the song isn’t really over, so you’re relieved. But then the song does actually end, because every song ends, obviously, and THAT. TIME. THE. END. IS. FOR. REAL.” The boy’s obsession with the pauses shows us how we must cling to hope. In these modern times, where music seems cheap, American democracy is threatened, individuality is suppressed, isolation is encouraged, and art seems powerless, we must stay hopeful and keep listening for the song to start up again. The song is not over.