Sasha Grady Blake

Jennifer Egan

Sasha’s story is that of a girl born into a difficult family, who develops many problems of her own. She wants nothing more than redemption and transformation, however. Her story is told, by the many people who knew her, in A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan [published 2011].

As a little girl, Sasha is described by her uncle Ted, who wanted to rescue her from her ferocious parents: a fragile face, long red hair, green eyes. At five she seems more grown up than she should. She leaves home at 17, running away to Japan with a musician, then to Hong Kong and China. Her uncle is paid by a stepfather to find her in Naples. “I meet people everywhere I go,” she tells him. But he sees that, in fact, she is alone, empty-handed, and manages to convince her to come home.

We next catch up with Sasha in college where she has fallen in love with Drew, a down-to-earth guy from Wisconsin. She is a little older than most of the students and no longer as self-destructive. One night Drew does Ecstasy with Rob, who is also close to Sasha. Rob has been a pretend boyfriend for her, keeping her step-father’s detectives at bay. Sasha is protective of Rob, told him after a suicide attempt, “we are survivors.” But Rob is not. That night he drowns in the East River. This blows Drew and Sasha apart.

In the next years, Sasha becomes the assistant of a successful music entrepreneur, Benny, who is very dependent on her. Benny says she smells like apricots, including the slight bitterness. Benny wonders why she hasn’t married. She is also a kleptomaniac, living alone in the East Village in an apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen. Sasha tries to overcome her problem by talking to her therapist, Kaz. She won’t talk about her father, who left when she was six. “I am always happy,” she says. She has goals, works out and studies languages.

After many years, Sasha and Drew find each other again. Drew has become a doctor and works in Pakistan. Sasha packs up her New York life and never looks back.

They move back to the United States, to the desert and have two children, Allison and Lincoln. Drew has a clinic and often treats undocumented people. Allison says it is a mystery to her why her parents love each other so much. She asks her mother to tell her all the “bad and embarrassing things she has done.” But Sasha spares her daughter the relics of her past.

Sasha makes sculptures in the desert from trash and old toys. The weathering and disintegration of these sculptures are part of her art process. She also makes collages of found objects and little pieces of her family’s life. “They may seem casual and meaningless, but they tell the whole story.”

One evening, wandering the East Village, the memory of Sasha comes back to two men who knew her in New York. “I was crazy about her,” one says, while the other longs for her and his younger self. Time is the goon who has robbed them all.

From tales told by her daughter, we learn that Sasha has indeed found love and contentment. To me she is emblematic of all those who have struggled with poor circumstances and made something of themselves in the end. She remains a whiff in the air of New York, a sweet memory to her uncle, and a solid presence to her children, having found the redemption and transformation she wanted so badly.