Novelists can imagine a gadget years before engineers build one
She went into the future only to follow a character into later life, and meant the technology as satire.
Better in Person with Stephen Dubner · “I Trust Almost Anyone More Than Myself”Novelist Jennifer Egan beat the smartphone to market because writing a gadget is faster than building one.
Egan wrote the future chapters of her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, "A Visit from the Goon Squad," in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. The book, published in 2010, follows characters clutching "handsets" that do everything a smartphone does. The first iPhone arrived around 2007 or 2008, and Egan did not own one until 2011.
She does not claim to be far ahead, only a couple of years ahead: "it takes much less time to write something than it does to actually invent it and create a product," she said.
She went into the future only to follow a character into later life. She briefly considered moving the book back 10 years, then realized she would lose punk rock. What she meant as satire now reads as realism, down to a water wall like one being discussed now; Sandy had not happened when she wrote.
Questions people ask
What is "A Visit from the Goon Squad" about?
It is a connected set of stories that follows punk rockers, managers, assistants, and their children across decades. Chapters jump back and forth in time, so readers see the same people young and old. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2011.
Did Egan really predict other technology?
Not exactly, and that is her point. Novelists can sketch a plausible device in a sentence, while engineers need years for chips, batteries, networks, and factories. That speed gap can make normal imagination look like prediction for a year or two.
What is the water wall mentioned at the end?
It is a flood barrier discussed in the novel's future New York. After Hurricane Sandy flooded parts of New York in 2012, the city and federal engineers pursued coastal defenses, including walls and gates around Manhattan. Egan wrote hers before Sandy happened.