Jennifer Egan
Encyclopedia
Jennifer Egan is an American
novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn
. Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad
won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
and National Book Critics Circle Award
for fiction.
, Egan majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania
, followed by a two-year fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge
. She has published short fiction in The New Yorker
, Harper's
, Zoetrope: All-Story
, and Ploughshares
, among others, and her journalism appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine
. She has published one short story collection and four novels, among which Look at Me was a finalist for the National Book Award
in 2001.
Unlike her earlier works, Egan has been hesitant to classify A Visit from the Goon Squad as either a novel or a short story collection. Speaking about A Visit from the Goon Squads genre, Egan said, "I wanted to avoid centrality. I wanted polyphony. I wanted a lateral feeling, not a forward feeling. My ground rules were: every piece has to be very different, from a different point of view. I actually tried to break that rule later; if you make a rule then you also should break it!" The book features genre-bending content such as a chapter entirely formatted as a Microsoft PowerPoint
presentation. When discussing her inspiration and approach to the work, she said, "I don’t experience time as linear. I experience it in layers that seem to coexist…One thing that facilitates that kind of time travel is music, which is why I think music ended up being such an important part of the book. Also, I was reading Proust. He tries, very successfully in some ways, to capture the sense of time passing, the quality of consciousness, and the ways to get around linearity, which is the weird scourge of writing prose."
Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship
in 1996, and was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library
in 2004-05. In 2011 she was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
.
Egan won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award
(Fiction) and a Pulitzer Prize
for A Visit From the Goon Squad.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist and short story writer who lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Fort Greene, Brooklyn
Fort Greene is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. Part of Brooklyn Community Board 2, Fort Greene is listed on the New York State Registry and on the National Register of Historic Places, and is a New York City-designated Historic District...
. Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad
A Visit From the Goon Squad
A Visit From the Goon Squad is a work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. It won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
and National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
for fiction.
Background and career
She was raised in San Francisco. After she graduated from Lowell High SchoolLowell High School (San Francisco)
Lowell High School is a public magnet school in San Francisco, California. The school opened in 1856 as the Union Grammar School and attained its current name in 1896. Lowell moved to its current location in the Merced Manor neighborhood in 1962....
, Egan majored in English literature at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, followed by a two-year fellowship at St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College, Cambridge
St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college's alumni include nine Nobel Prize winners, six Prime Ministers, three archbishops, at least two princes, and three Saints....
. She has published short fiction in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Harper's
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, Zoetrope: All-Story
Zoetrope: All-Story
Zoetrope: All-Story is an American literary magazine that was launched in 1997 by Francis Ford Coppola. Blooming from Francis Coppola's "Crazy Idea Department," All-Story is devoted to showcasing the most promising voices in short-fiction...
, and Ploughshares
Ploughshares
Ploughshares is an American literary magazine founded in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, Ploughshares has been based at Emerson College in the heart of Boston...
, among others, and her journalism appears frequently in The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine
The New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
. She has published one short story collection and four novels, among which Look at Me was a finalist for the National Book Award
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...
in 2001.
Unlike her earlier works, Egan has been hesitant to classify A Visit from the Goon Squad as either a novel or a short story collection. Speaking about A Visit from the Goon Squads genre, Egan said, "I wanted to avoid centrality. I wanted polyphony. I wanted a lateral feeling, not a forward feeling. My ground rules were: every piece has to be very different, from a different point of view. I actually tried to break that rule later; if you make a rule then you also should break it!" The book features genre-bending content such as a chapter entirely formatted as a Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint
Microsoft PowerPoint, usually just called PowerPoint, is a non-free commercial presentation program developed by Microsoft. It is part of the Microsoft Office suite, and runs on Microsoft Windows and Apple's Mac OS X operating system...
presentation. When discussing her inspiration and approach to the work, she said, "I don’t experience time as linear. I experience it in layers that seem to coexist…One thing that facilitates that kind of time travel is music, which is why I think music ended up being such an important part of the book. Also, I was reading Proust. He tries, very successfully in some ways, to capture the sense of time passing, the quality of consciousness, and the ways to get around linearity, which is the weird scourge of writing prose."
Awards
Egan was the recipient of a National Endowment for the ArtsNational Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
in 1996, and was a fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
in 2004-05. In 2011 she was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
The PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is awarded annually by the PEN/Faulkner Foundation to the authors of the year's best works of fiction by living American citizens. The winner receives US $15,000 and each of four runners-up receives US $5000. The foundation brings the winner and runners-up to...
.
Egan won the 2011 National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
(Fiction) and a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction has been awarded for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life. It originated as the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, which was awarded between 1918 and 1947.-1910s:...
for A Visit From the Goon Squad.
Works
- Emerald City (short story collection) (1993, UK; released in US in 1996)
- The Invisible Circus (novel) (1995)
- Look at Me (novel) (2001)
- The KeepThe Keep (Jennifer Egan novel)The Keep is a novel by Jennifer Egan which became a National Bestseller, a New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book, and a Chicago Tribune, Kansas City Star, and Rocky Mountain News Best Book of the Year...
(novel) (2006) - A Visit From the Goon SquadA Visit From the Goon SquadA Visit From the Goon Squad is a work of fiction by American author Jennifer Egan. It won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
(novel) (2010)
Reviews
Reviewing The Keep, The New York Times: Jennifer Egan is a refreshingly unclassifiable novelist; she deploys most of the arsenal developed by metafiction writers of the 1960s and refined by more recent authors like William T. VollmannWilliam T. VollmannWilliam Tanner Vollmann is an American novelist, journalist, short story writer, essayist and winner of the National Book Award...
and David Foster WallaceDavid Foster WallaceDavid Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...
— but she can’t exactly be counted as one of them. The opening of her novel, The Keep, lays out a whole Escherian architecture, replete with metafictional trapdoors, pitfalls, infinitely receding reflections and trompe l’œil effects, but what’s more immediately striking about this book is its unusually vivid and convincing realism.
External links
- Jennifer Egan's website
- Reviews & Scores for The Keep at Metacritic.com
- Book Review at Boldtype.com
- "The Ghost in the Renovation" at This Old House website
- Reading report from Happy Endings with Peter Behrens and David Rakoff, published at bookishlove.net (Nov 2006)
- 2010 BOMB Magazine interview of Jennifer Egan by Heidi Julavitz