Finished: A Visit From the Goon Squad (Egan) Pulitzer Prize winning novel that jumps about in time and is about several people who weave in and out of the lives of record producer Bennie Salazar and his assistant Sasha. Most of the characters could be called tragic, but many of them rise above that and come to a future they are happy with. Told in vignettes focusing on the different characters, the book is mostly centered in the music scene. We first meet Sasha, Bennie's kleptomaniac assistant. She's with him for over ten years, and he finally has to let her go for her "problem". When we meet her, she's still his assistant and she's taking a man she meets off the street, Alex, up to her apartment. They have a one night stand and while he's not looking, Sasha takes an old fortune cookie message out of Alex's wallet that he keeps to encourage himself. He's an up and coming sound engineer, or so he hopes. After their one night stand, they never see each other again. We learn, though, that Sasha is independent and quirky and smart and good at her job, as well as being a kleptomaniac. Next the book focuses on Bennie, who is now divorced from his wife Stephanie, but has a nine year old son, Christopher. On his visitation day, Bennie takes Christopher with him, along with Sasha, to the house of one of the bands he's managing. Christopher doesn't think his dad is very cool until they get to do that...and until his dad let's him experiment with his gold flakes that he has purchased for a pretty penny that he dusts in his own coffee every morning. For some reason he thinks it will make him find his sexual mojo again. Next we go back in time to when Bennie is a senior in high school and he's got his own band with his best friend, Scotty, called the Flaming Dildos. They are pretty bad, but they do get a gig at a punk rock bar. They have a friendship with Jocelyn and Rhea, but Scotty loves Jocelyn, and Bennie loves Rhea, but Rhea loves Scotty. Scotty ends up with Rhea because the teenage Jocelyn ends up dating millionaire, thrice married, thrice divorced, six time father, Lou. Jocelyn convinces Lou to come and see the band where he discovers that while they are terrible, he sees great potential in Bennie as a record producer, and becomes his mentor. The next chapter goes back to when Lou's oldest children are young teens, and he takes them on an African safari with his third wife-to-be, Mindy. The lead singer of one of the bands he represents is also there, and disregards the safety measures when they are near the lions, and is nearly mauled until the tour guide jumps in and saves the day. Mindy likes this and so Mindy and the tour guide have a one night fling which Lou finds out about. He's been planning to dump Mindy when he got home, but this just makes him propose to her instead. He is a screwed up person, but he does have some touching moments with his kids and truly seems to love them, so that is nice. In the next chapter, it has been over twenty years since Jocelyn and Rhea have seen Lou when they were younger and they go to visit him after he's incapacitated by a stroke. They wheel him out in his bed to the pool so he can be in the sun and they basically say their goodbyes to each other. I could go on and on, but there are just so many characters, and they all lead back somehow to Sasha or Bennie. We find out that Sasha runs away from home when she's seventeen because her father and mother have divorced due to her father's violent temper. She goes to Asia and Italy and scrapes by with her stealing. She had also spent time as a young teen in Florida where the thrill of stealing hooked her up with an older man who paid kids money for the things they stole off tourists...a modern day Fagin! The older man also has sex with thirteen year old Sasha for quite a while. Sasha finally goes to college and meets her boyfriend, Drew, and her best friend, Rob. Rob is in love with Sasha, but missed his chance of telling her so and now she's with Drew. Rob knows every sordid detail about Sasha, though. Rob has recently tried to commit suicide by slashing his wrists, so all his friends are on eggshells around him. It's possible that he's gay, but they never come right out and say it. He seems just as envious of Sasha being with Drew though as Drew being with Sasha. One night, they all go out to party and Sasha doesn't agree when they pull out some pills to do, so she goes back home. Drew and Rob get very high and Rob kind of indicates that he'd like to be with Drew. This freaks Drew out somewhat and he pulls away from Rob emotionally. Rob is stung so he blurts out to Drew all the sordid details about Sasha just to hurt him...about the man in Florida, about the stealing, everything. Drew gets really mad and goes and strips down and jumps in the East River (I think) in New York. He's a strong swimmer. Rob, of course, follows, and Rob is not a strong swimmer. Rob is pulled by the currents and drowns. We leave that chapter without seeing how anyone else reacts to all of that. Meanwhile, Bennie has been married, had his son, and created a very successful record company of his own until his own board fires him for actually feeding them bowls of shit at one meeting as he complains to them that all they are bringing him is shit talent, or something like that. One of the coolest chapters, and I think my favorite, is when we flash to the future and Sasha, after many years apart, has found her college boyfriend, Drew, married him, and has two children, 12 year old Alison and 13 year old, slightly autistic, Linc. This chapter is told completely in power point slides by Alison! It's how she writes her diary. It's very unique and focuses on how they all really love each other as a family, and how they love Linc and go along with his obsession with the breaks or pauses in famous songs. This is just how Linc relates to everyone, even though he plays sports and does things with his family, this is his "thing". I think the reason this is my favorite chapter is because right in the middle of it, on one of her slides, Alsion has written "mine and Linc's rooms are right next to each other, with just a wall dividing us. At night Linc knocks twice on the wall to say good night, and then I knock twice to say good night back". This actually brought tears to my eyes because it's exactly what my little brother (who is no longer living) and I used to do as kids!! Only we would knock back and forth until the knocks got lighter and lighter and one of us was clearly falling asleep. We even did this through college when we were both home for the weekend at the same time. sigh.  I had no idea anyone else ever did that. Anyway, I loved this part of the book. That wraps up Sasha's story. Then, to wrap up Bennie's story, he's got to climb his way back up after making a mess of his own, huge company. By now it's the age where everything is texted back and forth and word of mouth on social media goes a long way. He goes back to his old band mate, Scotty, who has just scraped by all these years, and asks him if he wants to do a comeback concert. He's heard some of Scotty's recent music and thinks this could be huge. He hires a young father named Alex (see sound engineer wannabe from first chapter) and gets him to create buzz on the internet by paying people to drum up business for Scotty's concert. Thankfully, when the huge outdoor concert in NY comes to fruition, it's a huge success and the people love Scotty's new music. We leave the book there as both Bennie and Scotty have made their comebacks. :-) I really avoided reading this book for awhile, because it just did not sound appealing...but I'm glad I read it! It goes into so much more depth, and cleverly so, on the life adventures of the characters, many of whom I haven't named. It's tragic, but a bit uplifting at the same time, at least for the people who manage to survive their young adults lives and head into maturity!