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Jennifer Egan's Fiction and Visions of the Future
- peterbraden 4y agoFinished Candy House recently and found it fairly mediocre. She seems to prefer writing about people than thinking through the consequences of the technology she introduced, and as a result, the Sci-Fi aspects feel awkwardly bolted on to the story, rather than having any real consequences to the people in it.
- chris_st 4y agoReally enjoyed her "Visit from the Goon Squad". Highly recommended.
- hairofadog 4y agoWhile she's certainly a highly accomplished writer of her own accord, a weird bit of trivia is that she dated Steve Jobs for a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Egan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Egan While I'm here dropping off-topic trivia, another interesting one is that accomplished writer Mona Simpson is Steve Jobs's sister, though they didn't know each other until later in life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Simpson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Simpson Anyway, I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but will do this evening. Thanks for posting it!
- googlryas 4y agoEven more off-topic: Mona Simpson is the name of Homer Simpson's mother - named after the writer Mona Simpson by her husband, Richard Appel, who was a Simpson's writer.
- ubermonkey 4y agoIt feels worthwhile pointing out something others may miss: you aren't using "sister" in the colloquial sense here at all. Simpson and Jobs shared BOTH parents. The couple were not yet married, or even really a stable couple, when Jobs was born in 1955. His birth mother gave him up, but then ended up marrying his birth father after all and subsequently having Simpson.
- Arubis 4y agoWell, that’s quite a vote for nature over nurture.
- ubermonkey 4y agoEgan is one of those writers who sees tech and the online world, and then tries to fold it into her work without really understanding it at all. I find her work pretty banal and superficial as a result. Her hamfisted choices in Goon Squad mean I won't bother with the new book.
- snapplebobapple 4y agoI wouldn't use Egan talking about it because there is a very excellent Australian science fiction writer named Greg Egan that totally redeems the last name.
- sohkamyung 4y agoOff-topic, but "Egan" makes me think of "Greg Egan", the Australian Hard SF writer whose works are enjoyed by a subset of HN people.
- aspectmin 4y agoI enjoy Greg's work, and am a huge fan of hard SF.
- ubermonkey 4y agoFair point for sure, but the topic is explicitly about a different Egan.
- mbil 4y agoWhat "hamfisted choices in Goon Squad" are you referring to?
- giraffe_lady 4y agoShe may not "understand it" in the same way we do but in terms of how we experience and are shaped by it as a culture I think she's very astute. I read goon squad recently and was surprised it's more than a decade old so rather than engaging with recent changes from technology she was more predicting them. I think it would have read as very cynical to me in 2011 but reading it now it's clear that was warranted.