The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 28 June 2011
by Jennifer Egan
The best novels tackle the Big Questions: life, death, the passage of time. Jennifer Egan telegraphs her intent in the opening epigraph by Marcel Proust, the master of deep dwelling upon Time and its affects on us. In this deft novel, Egan takes us through the lives of a large number of characters, loosely and tightly interwoven across decades from the early 1970s to a decade in the not-too-distant future. First, we meet Sasha, out on a date with Alex and trying in vain to supress her kleptomania. We go on to meet Sasha's boss, who runs a small record label in New York. We have episodes from Sasha's youth, high school days spent getting into the Mabuhay Gardens, a San Francisco punk hot spot in the early 80s. Then there are big time music executives, a safari in Africa, college kids finding their way in New York, and even a strangely convincing and moving Power Point chapter told from the point of view of Sasha's daughter. The story jumps back and forth in time, and skips perspective from one character to another. Yet there remains no doubt about the arc of these people's lives. Music and its business are constant features, and certainly the passage of time, from spirited childhood to old age and death. Many of these chapters were previously published as stand-alone stories, and they read as tidy tales. Yet, Egan weaves them together, adding more material, so that the reader is left with the impression of a community, living in a communal novel, and with frequent notes of brilliance. It's tone reminds one of the complex interactions of characters and plot in the works of Armistead Maupin. Egan's writing is often similarly light and accessible. This is a little deceptive, though. Egan provides a remarkable depth and sensitivity to her character's existence in Time. One can feel the movement of time through the book, and sense the confusion and regret that comes with age, as the world speeds up and inevitably passes us by. But also as we try to stay true to the people we thought we would become when we were young, while also making our individual attempts to stay a part of the world, which moves in sweeps of coincidence, feeling and chaos. A beautifully woven novel.
(For this book, Egan was awarded the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.)