“The aesthetic of the gap” : the limits of storytelling in the work of Jennifer Egan

Rouverol, AJ

Abstract

A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010) is distinctively marked by the use of gaps and lacunae within the narrative’s construction, directing the reader’s focus to the unnarrated. This article examines the resultant silences and storytelling that emerges from them in the novel, with a consideration of Egan’s earlier works, The Invisible Circus (1995), Look at Me (2001), The Keep (2006), and “Black Box” (2012). Egan’s use of prolepsis, analepsis, and the juxtaposition of story time to narrative time in A Visit from the Goon Squad creates an aesthetic of the gap, which finds a new way to dramatize the impossibility of a total narrative. The novel breaks with traditional narrative structures, illustrating “Spiral Time” to evince questions of limitation and possibility within the work.

Citation

Rouverol, A. (2021). “The aesthetic of the gap” : the limits of storytelling in the work of Jennifer Egan. Contemporary Women's Writing, 15(2), 280-299. https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpab023

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Dec 16, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 20, 2021
• Publication Date: Nov 20, 2021
• Deposit Date: Sep 2, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 21, 2023
• Journal: Contemporary Women's Writing
• Print ISSN: 1754-1476
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Volume: 15
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 280-299
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/cww/vpab023
• Publisher URL: https://academic.oup.com/cww/article-abstract/15/2/280/6432382?redirectedFrom=fulltext
• Related Public URLs: https://academic.oup.com/cww