Read the first excerpt from theA Visit From the Goon Squadcompanion novel

Here, an excerpt about Sasha.

My cousin Sasha had lived in the desert for twenty years before I discovered she had become an artist.

The picture showed dozens of hot-air balloons suspended above rambling, colorful sculptures stretched out across the California desert.

According to the article, Sasha made these forms out of discarded plastic.

How did I know?Because right before she married Drew, in 2008, she started returning things.

My dad got a Bic pen, the kind they sold in bags of twenty at Staples.

I, too, received a pen, but mine was a Montblanc worth several hundred dollars.

“I know,” he said.

“I got a Bic.

I’m not even sure it’s mine, it might have belonged to the restaurant.”

“Can we c’mon be done with her, Dad?”

“Once and for all?

She’s incorrigible.”

“She’s the opposite of incorrigible.

She’s making amends.”

“I don’t want her amends.

I want her to disappear.”

“What makes you say things like that, Miles?”

It’s the sinners everyone loves: the flailers, the scramblers, the bumblers.

There was nothing sexy about getting it right the first time.

F— Sasha, I thought.

I was a moralizing prig, and not just toward my cousin.

How had the human species managed to survive for millennia?

Every move I made was aimed at harrying myself toward greater excellence.

But certain things, like sleep, resist rigid control.

I bridged the gaps with peanut butter, which I ate by the jar, and teenage energy.

I became, as they say, “irritable” hard to work for and harder to live with.

To the naked eye, things still looked fine at that point.

She was a genius at capturing offhand moments and making them look iconic.

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION OF SCRIBNER, A DIVISION OF SIMON & SCHUSTER, INC.