A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
Jennifer Egan

Chapter 3: Ask Me if I Care

We are thrust into a totally different narrative, age and characters. The only one we are familiar with is a young Bennie. It is 1979, and he has formed a punk rock group.
Rhea narrates, using the language and style of the young. I was surprised how the lack of speech marks evokes this:

Scotty goes, Can we see them? And Alice goes, My uniforms? but Scottie goes, No your alleged sisters.

Rhea and Jocelyn are very close, as are Bennie and Scotty. Rhea says of the boys
‘We don’t know how they decide if they should keep a name, because Bennie and Scotty don’t actually talk. But they agree on everything, maybe through ESP.
The two girls don’t accept Alice as really belonging to the group, as she is perceived as wealthier:
…Rich people like to hostess, so they can show off their nice stuff -Jocelyn comments on Alice’s mum.
Rhea is madly in love with Bennie, but he has eyes only for Alice. Jocelyn consoles Rhea with the fact that:
The good news is, rich girls wont go with cholos. So he’ll never get Alice, period-the-end.
(I had to look up cholo – apparently it s a Latin American man with American Indian blood)
No one knows where Bennie lives.
Perhaps this is a story of friendships and relationships. The dwindling friendship between Scottie and Bennie, Rhea and Jocelyn being echoes of the lost friendship between Sasha and Lizzie. It is also the start of a life long friendship between Bennie and Lou, Sasha’s previous boss.

I think in this chapter Rhea realises that her friendship with Jocelyn is not as mutually binding as she had thought.
‘But she never mentioned that it was on the thirty-fifth floor, six blocks away from the Mab, or the green marble slabs in the elevator. I think that was a lot to leave out’
Rhea also questions her own and others’ behaviour ‘I’m worried that what happened in the club counts as having sex with Lou – that I was part of it’. Jocelyn is blithely unmoved by the picture of Lou with his six children, but Rhea is upset at the apparent contradictions in Lou’s life.
‘I lean close to the picture. Lou looks so happy, surrounded by his kids like any normal dad, that I can’t believe this Lou with us is the very same Lou. Then I notice his son, Rolph. He has bright blue eyes and black hair and a bright, sweet smile. I get a crawling feeling in my stomach. I go, Rolph is decent, and Jocelyn laughts and goes, Really. Then she goes. Don’t tell Lou I said that.’

Sorry. I posted this under the wrong chapter. When Bennie is playing around in Lou’s recording studio, these are the songs he plays.
The Passenger by IggyPop
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4hPnZUMBwA

By coincidence, I happened to download The Passenger last week.

and Heart of Glass by Blondie
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1973e ... lass_music

Anyone know's who sang ‘Don’t let me down’? I can hear it in my head but can’t think of the singer.

If anyone has any better links, please post. My net is too slow to deliberate between different videos.