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In A Visit from the Goon Squad, each chapter is both interrelated and distinct. They’re standalone stories that collectively form a cohesive narrative, which only starts to reveal itself when the reader has already read several of the characters. The novel does not follow a traditional chronology either, moving instead through different time periods from the late 1970s to the 2020s. As if this weren’t complex enough, it is also divided into two parts, A and B: the two sides of an album. Several characters appear on most of its “tracks,” gradually coming together and drifting apart.
In "Found Objects," the kleptomaniac Sasha Blake meets with her therapist, Coz. The narrative jumps back and forth between the therapy appointment and Sasha’s recent past. She anxiously recounts a date with a deeply boring man called Alex, during which she can’t resist stealing a wallet from a woman in the bathroom. Coz tries to get her to admit the thievery and to use the word “stealing,” but Sasha can’t quite get there. After the wallet incident causes some dramatic events involving the police, Sasha and Alex spend the night together. She steals a piece of paper from Alex's wallet that says, "I believe in you," and doesn’t give it back. In the present, she feels deep regret that she can’t change, and wishes she could tell Coz she was improving.
"The Gold Cure" introduces Bennie Salazar, a misogynistic record executive dealing with anxiety and sexual impotence. Bennie performs lots of esoteric rituals to keep himself healthy, as he’s terrified by aging. He has coffee with his son Christopher and mentally examines his conflicted sexual feelings for Sasha, his assistant, before heading to see a pair of singers called Stop/Go. As Bennie and Sasha watch them, Bennie has several intense violent and sexual flashbacks, and feels like he’s losing his grip on the present moment. When he drops Sasha at her home, Bennie confesses his attraction to her, but she deflects it, telling him they “need each other.”
In "Ask Me If I Care," the story jumps back to 1979. It’s narrated by Rhea, a punk rocker, who’s on her way to her friend Alice’s house with a group of other punks that includes a younger Bennie. Rhea’s friend Jocelyn begins a relationship with Lou, a much older record executive, and convinces him to see Bennie’s band, The Flaming Dildos. The Flaming Dildos are working hard to get a gig at the Mab, a local music hub. When they eventually do, Lou takes Jocelyn and Rhea to see them. However, during the concert Jocelyn gives Lou oral sex in front of Rhea and she freezes in shock. Lou and Jocelyn eventually run away together, and Rhea wonders if everyone in her friend group settling for one another is her fault.
"Safari" follows Lou, some celebrity friends, his children Charlie and Rolph, and his girlfriend Mindy on an African safari. Charlie and Rolph are each struggling to adjust to Mindy in different ways, and Mindy constantly psychologizes people in the terms she’s learned as an anthropology student at UC Berkeley. The trip is full of disagreements and small injuries, and later reveals the upcoming destinies of some of the characters. Mindy and Lou have children and then divorce, Carlie narrowly escapes a cult, and Rolph commits suicide at 28.
"You (Plural)" shifts to a quarter-century later, where Jocelyn and Rhea visit a bedridden Lou, who’s had multiple strokes. Jocelyn was an addict but is now clean, and Rhea is now married with children. The three have a difficult conversation where each is secretly annoyed with the other. Jocelyn and Rhea push Lou outside to the pool. Jocelyn, overcome with emotion and frustrated with her ex-husband, tells Lou he deserves to die for the way he treated her. However, all three end up with their arms around each other, peacefully looking at the pool.
"X’s and O’s" is narrated by Scotty Hausman, who lives a reclusive life as a janitor. He visits his old friend Bennie and brings a dead fish as a gift. When Bennie reacts to his arrival with fear instead of happiness, Scotty realizes they are no longer friends and is able to return to his life with a sense of closure.
In "A to B," Bennie’s wife Stephanie attempts to fit into their wealthy community in upstate New York. She suspects Bennie of infidelity, as he’s cheated before, but she can’t prove anything. Her brother Jules was recently released from prison and accompanies her to meet Bosco, a former guitarist planning a "suicide tour" of shows before he dies. Stephanie feels trapped by the rich, Republican women around her and the knowledge that Bennie is having an affair, which she learns at the end of the story by finding a suspicious hairclip.
"Selling the General" features Dolly Peale, a former PR expert working to rehabilitate the image of a genocidal dictator. She has some image issues of her own after a party she threw ended disastrously, an art exhibit having burned several of the celebrity guests. She and her daughter Lulu travel to meet The General, and Dolly enlists disgraced actor Kitty Jackson for a photo op that she thinks will help with The General’s public perception. However, things go seriously awry when Kitty publicly questions the dictator about the genocide he caused. Dolly and Lulu escape back to America, and Kitty unexpectedly manages to survive being detained by The General’s forces, rescuing her brand, and re-establishing her fame.
In "Forty-Minute Lunch: Kitty Jackson Opens Up About Love, Fame, and Nixon!" Sasha’s brother Jules Jones writes a magazine article about Kitty. As they eat lunch together, he finds himself more and more aroused by her, which leads to a mental breakdown and eventual imprisonment for attempting to rape Kitty in Central Park.
“Out of Body” is narrated by Rob, a friend of Sasha before she works for Bennie Salazar. Rob, a student at NYU, has recently attempted suicide. Sasha asks Rob to pose as her boyfriend to deceive her father, whom she believes has hired secret operatives to follow her around. Rob questions his sexuality and resents Sasha's interest in their mutual friend, Drew. They attend a concert together where Rob pines after Drew, and the two men take ecstasy together. After the concert, Sasha goes to a party with Bennie Salazar and leaves Rob and Drew to ride out their highs without her. Rob and Drew go to the East River, where Rob reveals Sasha’s past as a prostitute in an effort to make Drew hate her. Drew angrily walks away for a swim in the river, and Rob follows, but he drowns in the current. As he dies, he hears Sasha’s voice screaming at him to fight the water.
“Good-bye, My Love” is narrated by Ted Hollander, an uncle of Sasha’s. A teenage Sasha has gone missing in Naples, and her stepfather has sent Ted to find her. Ted is a self-absorbed opportunist and a professor of art, so instead of looking for Sasha he uses the trip to escape his family and see paintings. However, the two accidentally run into each other on the street, and awkwardly arrange to have dinner. During dinner, Ted lies about why he’s in Naples, and later in the evening Sasha steals his wallet. Ted waits outside her apartment the next day until she returns it and lets him in. They watch the sunset together, and Sasha “catches” the sun in the “trap” she sets in the window.
“Great Rock and Roll Pauses” is a PowerPoint presentation printed slide-by-slide by Sasha's daughter, Alison. Alison’s autistic brother Lincoln is obsessed with pauses in rock songs, trying to communicate with his father through his interest in them but repeatedly failing. Drew, the father in question, is a doctor and is rarely home. One night, Drew loses his temper with Lincoln, who’s obsessively talking about pauses. Sasha defends Lincoln, who runs to his room. Alison and Drew take a walk, and Drew admits that he has no idea how to talk to his son. The chapter ends with slides of graphs showing rock song pauses that Drew and Lincoln make together.
“Pure Language” returns to a character the reader has probably forgotten about at this point, focusing on Alex, Sasha's boring date from the first story. In the 2020s, Alex works for Bennie as a social networking marketer in a world where toddlers are the biggest consumers of music content. He’s been tasked with making a Scotty Hausman show go viral. He works with Lulu, Dolly’s daughter, to put together a foolproof campaign for promoting Scotty. On the concert day, although the venue is packed, Scotty has a panic attack and refuses to perform until Lulu convinces him to go on stage. Scotty plays the music he writes for toddlers and his own new material, which sends Bennie into raptures. The concert becomes a historic, Woodstock-level event. Afterward, Alex and Bennie walk by Sasha’s old building and ring the doorbell, but no one answers. The novel ends as an unknown girl walks up to the door, fiddling with her keys.
