Glowering skies rarely show up in Tallahassee. I’m so glad the weather took a turn for the cold and rainy — bookish weather, to me — on the evening that Jennifer Egan came to town to read from her captivating novel, “A Visit from the Good Squad,” which she called “a concept album in literary form.”
Even more compelling than the reading was Egan’s discussion of her writing process. While working on her novels, she visualized each one as a simple shape. “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” with its gang of characters who stumble through one another’s lives, was a tangle. An earlier novel, “The Keep,” took the form of concentric circles.
Egan said there’s one vital question she asks about every story she writes: “Is it alive?”
“You can have the greatest ideas in the world, but if it’s not fun, you’ve got nothing,” she said.
