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Jennifer Egan Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Author Biography  | Interview  | Books by this Author  | Read-Alikes

Jennifer Egan
Photo © 2010 Pieter M. Van Hattem/Vistalux

Jennifer Egan

Jennifer Egan Biography

Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection. Her novel, Manhattan Beach, published in October 2017, has been awarded the 2018 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her last novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times book prize. Also a journalist, she has written frequently in the New York Times Magazine.

Jennifer Egan's website

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Interview

Jennifer Egan talks about her book A Visit From the Goon Squad, the influence of music on the book, and how she managed such a broad cast of memorable characters.

Ok so tell us, what exactly constitutes a "visit from the goon squad"?

A: I knew the title of this book before I knew almost anything else.  So I, too, entered the project in a state of wondering who the Goon Squad was, exactly.  In addition to Proust, whose In Search of Lost Time I was working my way through as I wrote Goon Squad, my other primary literary (if you will) influence was The Sopranos, whose polyphonic structure I found deeply compelling.  So I guess you might say that there are goons in my book's genome.  The book is certainly full of people who feel beaten up in one way or another—disappointed, out of luck, gypped of what they once expected and still feel they deserve—but these hardships aren't the work of particular enemies so much as life's vicissitudes.  Without giving anything away, I'll say that the reader's understanding of who the real goon is accrues over the course of the book in much the way that my own comprehension of life's extreme brevity has overtaken me as I've pushed into my forties.  And that's all I'm going to say!


In the thirteen chapters in this book we meet a large cast of characters and come to see, chapter...

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Books by this Author

Books by Jennifer Egan at BookBrowse
The Candy House jacket Julia Unbound jacket Manhattan Beach jacket A Visit from the Goon Squad jacket
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Read-Alikes

All the books below are recommended as read-alikes for Jennifer Egan but some maybe more relevant to you than others depending on which books by the author you have read and enjoyed. So look for the suggested read-alikes by title linked on the right.
How we choose read-alikes

  • Megan Angelo

    Megan Angelo

    Megan Angelo grew up in Quakertown, Pennsylvania and graduated from Villanova University. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Glamour and Elle, among other publications. She lives in ... (more)

    If you enjoyed:
    The Candy House

    Try:
    Followers
    by Megan Angelo

  • Steve Earle

    Steve Earle

    Steve Earle is a singer-songwriter, actor, activist, and the author of the story collection Doghouse Roses. He has released over a dozen critically acclaimed albums, including the Grammy winners The Revolution Starts Now, ... (more)

We recommend 27 similar authors


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