Review

 Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad: Part One Imagined Malice 

"I can't imagine; then I imagined. Howling like a lunatic howls at the moon."  Then snap - back to reality.  A kind of poltergeist... giving me whiplash from those horrors that go bump into the night.


In Egan's a visit from the Goon Squad her imagined horrors allows Jocelyn to throw Lou into the pool, and then allow her to drown him with disgust.  pg. 68  Egan uses the same technique with Scotty, and Bennie in Chapter 6 page 77.  Scotty imagines ripping Bennie's head off with his bear strength.  "I pictured carrying it into his swank waiting room by his bushy hair and dropping it on Sasha's desk."  Our natural, troglodyte self raises its hairy head and  howls at our current horrible condition.


Ghost stories are not just the supernatural but also include eerie moments. Horror stories create a setting  where we are forced to deal with our preoccupied private malice.  These moments are eerie, they seem more than an  every day occurrences. We embrace imagined horrors; because we want to be able to handle a crisis by our own hands.