Lou from A Visit From the Goon Squad

Seeing Lou during the different stages of his life offers the viewer a different perspective of Lou. Egan's non-chronological structure allows the reader to envision the characters at different stages of their life. The foculizer in each chapter changes, which allows the reader to see the multiple sides there are to Lou: the charming side, the disengaged father, and the old man who goes after younger girls. Within each chapter, the reader's perspective on the character changes in accordance with the foculizer's relationship to the character. These multiple perspectives allow for a more multidimensional character.

In the chapter "Ask Me If I Care," the reader meets Lou through Rhea's perspective. Lou is forty-three years old and he picks up Jocelyn hitchhiking. They eventually form a relationship even though Jocelyn is younger than Lou's oldest daughter. Lou is presented as a man who is struggling with the progression of time. He throws wild parties, does cocaine, has several children, and goes after younger women. In "Safari," Lou is seen through shifting foculizers that explain the relationship between Lou and the closest people in his life. Lou is charming to the people that do not know him but his charm falls short on the people that are closest to him. The reader learns about Lou's current lover, Mindy, and about how she is only a few years older than Lou's oldest daughter. In "You (Plural)," Lou is presented as a dying, elderly man with tubes up his nose. Since Jocelyn is the foculizer of the chapter, the reader sees the striking difference between the Lou that picked Jocelyn up hitchhiking and the Lou that is being presented in the chapter.

Jocelyn resents Lou because she feels as though the world continued and she was left behind. Lou's journey illuminates our understanding of Jocelyn because the reader knows that Jocelyn met Lou at an early stage in her life. Meeting Lou affects Jocelyn and how she gets from point A to point B in her life because Lou does cocaine and has an eccentric lifestyle. Since Jocelyn gets romantically involved with Lou, her life goes downhill afterward and she blames it on Lou.