A Visit from the Goon Squad

Rob is one of the peripheral characters of the book A visit from the Goon Squad. He is Sasha’s best friend. He ever had the satisfaction of being Sasha’s confidant, but since Sasha fell in love with Drew, he had suffered from unrequited love and regretted that he had never fought for love. At last, his life was ended in a cold river, full of garbage.

Rob had a good chance to be Sasha’s real boyfriend before Drew appeared, but Rob was satisfied with being on intimate terms with Sasha and was scared to make any changes. Since he was asked to be a fake boyfriend by Sasha, a good confiding relationship had been set up between them. Rob deemed Sasha as his confidante and best friend so that he shared so many secrets with her. For example, only Sasha knew the reason why he picked NYU was it had no football team in thirty years (Egan, 187); only Sasha called him Bobby (188); only Sasha knew he never liked the water (190); even the deepest and darkest privacy that Rob ever had a love affair with James had been told Sasha (195). Rob was Sasha’s intimate friend, too. He knew the scar on her left ankle (196); he knew her birthmark around her belly button (196); he even was aware of her experience in Naples as a hooker and a thief (194). At that time, at least, Sasha liked him, or she would not choose him as his fake boyfriend on the first day of Freshmen Orientation. She said he was “cute” (193). A requited love relationship might be built if he acted for a change. However, he did not take any action because he “was scared to put lust to the test, not want to ruin it with Sasha if things going wrong” (196). In many situation, he could not make his own positive choices. He was easy to passively accept the current situation and afraid to change it, which resulted in his loss of one chance to be involved in requited love.

Rob started to taste the pain from unrequited love after Drew occupied the position of Sasha’s real boyfriend. Since Sasha fell in love with Drew, the only role Rob can play in Sasha’s life was best friend. The agony of unrequited love brought some painful emotional response. He cannot stop himself from using offensive language when he had a talk with Lizzie (189). He created tension in settings because of his mood of sadness. He cannot help himself envying Drew. When his jealousy overcame him, he had to do something wrong. He told Drew the experience of Sasha’s un-manicured past. The regrets that he did not fight for love aggravated the painful emotion. He thought he could not survive at first when he knew Sasha fell in love with Drew (196). Actually, he ever “hacked open his wrist with a box cutter” (187). But anyway, he survived this time.

Rob was not a selfish guy even he betrayed Sasha’s trust to expose her past to Drew. He just did something violating his nature because of extreme emotional issues. He could not control his activities. For the same reason, Rob was not a mean guy even he insulted Lizzie’s mom. The title of the chapter which narrated a story about Rob is “out of body”. Rob’s spirit was “out of body”, not only when he was dying, but also at other times. In fact, since Sasha and Drew were together, Rob’s sprint had disconnected with his body. He could realize that he did something wrong, but he could not stop himself. So when he wanted to apologize to Lizzie but spoke out more offensive language, “his throat tightened up and eyes got wet”. He felt that “some crazy engine inside his body would not let him stop” and he was split into two parts (191); when he disclosed Sasha’s bad past, he felt panic, and asked himself what he had done. He followed Drew because he did not want to hurt Sasha. He wanted that Drew would keep this secret, then the damage he caused would be “sealed off” (205). He followed Drew with strong perseverance to dive into the East River in the cold morning. It was not a wise thing for Rob to scramble in a river which was full of garbage when the temperature was 45 degrees Fahrenheit and his body had not totally recovered. Rob never liked water (190), so he was not good at swimming. However, he devoted himself to the cold water undauntedly, because he tried to make up his unintentional fault, keep Sasha from being hurt; because