"A Visit from the Goon Squad"

[fiefoe]

A couple of trips into head of people in psychological crisis:

• There is something out of control about a star who cannot be nice, and the erosion of a subject’s self-control is the sine qua non of celebrity reporting.
• Thus puncturing her prophylactic shield of niceness and commencing the painstaking attrition of her self-control.
• The single greatest hazard of celebrity reporting: permitting my subject to reverse the beam of scrutiny, at which point I will no longer be able to see her.
• the gratuitous cruelty of others
• Because she has not yet disappointed herself, merely startled herself and the world with her own premature accomplishments
• plump, sweetly fragrant sac upon which life scrawls the record of our failures and exhaustion—is perfect

• trying to fluff the hash out of her voice
• And lately you have the feeling she’s starting to forget, begin over again as the person she is to Drew. This makes you sick with envy; why couldn’t you do that for Sasha? Who’s going to do it for you?
• Hilarity keeps you busy for several blocks, but there’s a sickness to it, like an itch that if you keep on scratching, will grind straight through skin and muscle and bone.
• “We’re going to meet again in a different place,” Bix says. “Everyone we’ve lost, we’ll find. Or they’ll find us.”

Switching gear, the author had a whole chapter written in Powerpoint - in the voice of a teenager. It's a cute device, but its cleverness is lost on me.

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