Unbreakable Concrete

Everybody makes mistakes. Everyone has something he or she wishes to take back or redo. However, the past is permanent. Once something happens, it has happened. The irreversibility of the past can be either positive or negative, because the past affects the future. Author Jennifer Egan shows this in her novel A Visit from the Goon Squad. Through Sasha and Drew, Jennifer Egan illustrates the concrete nature of the past and that those concrete events shape a person’s future.

The concrete nature of the past is first seen through Sasha’s therapy sessions in chapter one. Like most people in therapy, Sasha’s attempts to help herself and resolve personal problems, especially those from the past. It almost goes without saying that Sasha is also in therapy because she cannot resolve those problems on her own. In order to help Sasha, her therapist, Coz, talks to Sasha about her problems from the more distant, to the most recent past. For instance, Coz regularly brings up stories of Sasha’s kleptomania. Coz’s perseverance of the plumber story, where Sasha stole a screwdriver from a plumber, shows this. Egan writes “[Sasha] told Coz the plumber story about a month ago, and he’d found a way to bring it up at almost every session since” (Egan 7). Although this is the nature of a therapist-patient relationship, it shows that after something happens, it cannot change or be erased from the past. As a therapist, Coz knows that Sasha can only get over her past problems if she faces them. Nevertheless, those problems will have always still happened, and their effects will never disappear.

The effects of Sasha’s kleptomania lasted for almost the entire book because Egan mentions the stolen items again in chapter twelve, the second to last chapter. The fact that the stolen items were still around eleven chapters after the theft occurred shows the lasting nature of Sasha’s thievery. Chapter twelve took place a number of years after chapter one, and Sasha had a husband, Drew, and children, Ally and Lincoln. Sasha’s daughter, Ally, said that her mother made art from “found objects” (265). Egan is hinting that Sasha used all of the objects she “found” for art. The stolen items still affected her life years after she stole them. In addition, Sasha stated that the objects “…tell the whole story if you really look” (265). This means that those objects told the story of her life. The past events of Sasha’s life were sown into the fabric that is her past and continued to send rippled effects into her present.

Drew’s actions also demonstrated the unchangeable nature of the past. In chapter ten, Drew decided to swim in the East River. As a swimmer, Drew defeated the currents of the East River and swam easily. However, because Drew jumped in, his best friend Rob jumped in as well. Rob wanted prove his place among Drew and his other friends by swimming. Egan narrates through Rob’s eyes and says “You climb the slab of concrete and start taking off clothes, sodden with dread but moved by a waving sense that if you can master this dread it will mean something, prove something about you” (206). Rob was not as good of a swimmer as Drew was, and thus had trouble swimming against the strong currents. The currents eventually took Rob downstream, and he drowned. Although Drew’s decision to swim was not the direct cause of Rob’s death (it was more Rob’s obsession for approval and the strong currents), Rob would have not swam and consequently drowned if Drew did not swim first. The irreversibility of Rob’s death and Drew’s decision shows the everlasting nature of the past.

Afterwards, the result of the Drew’s choice trailed Drew for the rest of his life, and affected both his and Sasha’s future. For years afterwards, and most likely for the remainder of his life, Drew will regret Rob’s death, and both he and Sasha will be saddened by it. Moreover, Ally said, “Rob was Mom’s best friend” (273). Drew’s actions not only affected his own life, but Sasha’s life too because she lost her best friend.
In addition to their sadness and Sasha’s loss of her best friend, Rob’s death affected Drew to such a degree that according to Ally it marked “…when Dad decided to become a doctor. Before that, Dad wanted to be president” (273). A single event altered Drew’s career path and the way he supported his future family. Rob’s death helped shape both Drew’s and Sasha’s life.
Jennifer Egan showed that one event affects the future and that the past is irrevocable. The effects of past events can appear years after they occur, and can shape and/or change the future. The fruits of Sasha’s theft never left her life, and were still around years after she stopped stealing. Consequently, they acted as a constant reminder of her criminal past. Rob’s death changed Drew’s career choice and Sasha lost her best friend. Regardless of how trivial an event might be, once it has happened, it has happened. The past is one’s past and cannot ever be rewritten or erased.