Which novel by Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011?

Which novel by Jennifer Egan won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011? A Visit from the Goon Squad won the award.

Published in 2010, the novel is an inventive, nonlinear collection of interconnected stories centered on Bennie Salazar, a former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, his troubled assistant. Its characters’ lives intersect across decades and locations, including New York, San Francisco, Naples, and Africa.

The book is especially known for its experimental form. One chapter is presented as a series of PowerPoint-style slides, while others shift perspective, tone, and chronology. These techniques reinforce Egan’s themes of aging, memory, technology, music, and cultural change.

A common mix-up is confusing it with Egan’s later novel The Candy House, published in 2022. The Candy House revisits some ideas and characters but did not win the 2011 prize. The Pulitzer citation described Egan’s book as an investigation of growing up and growing old in the digital age.