A Visit from the Goon Squad

It is sometime in the 2020s. Alison Blake, who narrates this chapter in the form of a graphic slide show journal entry, is Sasha’s daughter. Sasha is now married to Drew, and they have two children: Alison, aged twelve, and Lincoln, aged thirteen. They live in the desert. Lincoln is interested in the pauses in rock songs, sampling these pauses and playing them in loops to create his own music. Drew is a doctor, and everyone considers him a “good man” (248), although he is rarely at home with his family and has difficulty relating to Lincoln. Sasha likes to make sculptures out of “trash and our old toys” (242). Alison is curious about her mother’s past, because of a photo of her in a book about a rock and roll star, but Sasha doesn’t like to talk about that time in her life. Drew has told Alison about Rob, her mother’s best friend who drowned in college, and whom Drew tried to rescue but couldn’t.

One night, Drew arrives home from work in a bad mood. When Lincoln plays his music, composed of pauses, Drew gets frustrated and yells at him.