The Keep: It MIGHT sound like I didn't like it

I should preface all this by saying that something strange happened when I read the book jacket: I didn’t comprehend a word of it. Standing in the bookstore, I was convinced this was a gothic novel about two young female cousins living alone in a castle . . . which didn’t necessarily grab me, but Jennifer Egan’s name was right there on the cover.

I kinda like her.

Well, when I got it home and the first page opened on some dude named Danny, I was like, “That’s no lady.” And then when there was a portable satellite dish in his bag, I was like, “MODERN times. What am I even reading right now?”

I want to make sure this doesn’t happen to you, because it’s jarring. The book is about two BOY cousins. Adult ones. And the story is set in present-day Europe. Austria maybe? No one seems to know. But Howard, the one boy-cousin, purchased an old castle he's planning to turn into a resort. And Danny, the other boy-cousin, was in the middle of some drama in New York, so when Howard said he would pay Danny's travel expenses if he helped prepare the castle, he was amenable to that idea. The trouble is, Danny hasn’t seen Howard since they were kids, and there’s a big Past Event hanging over their relationship. So Danny has the nerves about seeing Howard again, and it doesn't help that it's happening in this crumbling, ominous castle in Germany or possibly the Czech Republic.

If you think you have a grasp of what this book is about because of my excellent summary above, I should also mention this is a story WITHIN a story. And you also get some gothic, borderline-supernatural elements as a bonus.

Just for being you.

I think this was only Egan’s second book, and it has some hint of the perspective-shifting style she went on to perfect in that shiny, splendiferous novel some years later. But it’s not quite there YET.

I had one foot out the door for at least 3/4 of the book. I’ll be honest. She does a weird thing where she prefaces each line of dialogue with the speaker’s name, followed by a colon; there’s nary a quotation mark to be found. And if her shunning of traditional punctuation isn't enough, there are some other . . . odd occurrences.

But the last 1/4? Something clicked, and I saw that the stuff I’d been wary of wouldn’t have worked any other way. And the shift was so subtle and perfect that I almost didn’t notice it happening. And then I backed up several pages so I could experience it again. And it was beautiful THAT time, too.

Surprise blog-post twist!

On the basis of the whole experience, I’m gonna go ahead and recommend that you read this one. Just . . . remember it’s about boys.

A Visit From the Goon Squad: "We have some history together that hasn’t happened yet."

What can I even SAY about this book? That I had forgotten what a well-written book was like until I read the first five pages of this one? That I want to have entire paragraphs tattooed on my person? That it's funny and clever but still manages to make me feel the kind of profound sadness I get when I look at pictures of Earth from outer space?

Or just...I guess one word is fine, too.

Goon Squad reads like a book of highly cohesive short stories, because each chapter is told from a different character’s perspective and jumps around on the book's timeline, with corresponding (often drastic) changes in voice and tone. Egan basically wears a different body for each chapter (slimy but effective). And you've probably heard of the chapter that's entirely in slideshow format? It SEEMS like that would come off a little gimmicky, but it's so far from anything resembling a gimmick. You'll see, my friends (because you're currently purchasing this from your friendly neighborhood bookseller, I trust).

None of the characters are formally introduced. You get acquainted with them organically, within the framework of their connection to a previous character. And the more you read, the more you gather about the book’s two central characters. But you’re not always aware that they ARE the central characters, because you’re learning about them in such a roundabout way. Each chapter builds on the previous one to give you an idea of who these two people are and how they came to be that way, and it’s all based on the people whom they crossed paths with or who meant something to them at some point, and then it comes full circle and is JUST lovely.

I think the magical component is that this rings so true to life. We are an amalgam of all the people we’ve known and all the places we’ve been and all the things we’ve done. And the only way to really know a person is to know ALL those things, places, and people. And it’s so overwhelming and wonderful to realize that you just can’t. You can’t know. We don’t even know ourselves that way. 

ISN'T IT FANTASTIC AND ALSO TERRIBLE?

Egan’s writing is flawless. She drops a little nugget in one chapter as though it’s incidental and then brings it up several chapters later in another person’s story to powerful effect. It’s emotional but never emotionally manipulative.

It’s hard to pull out quotes for this book, because everything is seamless and interlocking. So here’s basically an entire paragraph (I’m sorry, Jennifer, if this breaks some sort of copyright law . . . you brought this on yourself):

Many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed. . . . Then he’d folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it an edgy terror of never being satisfied. Then in half again, so that feeling desire entailed no immediate need to act. Then in half again, so he hardly felt it. His desire was so small in the end that Ted could slip it inside his desk or a pocket and forget about it, and this gave him a feeling of safety and accomplishment, of having dismantled a perilous apparatus that might have crushed them both.

I KNOW.