This novel – if it can even be called a novel - is more like a collection of stories, or better yet a kaleidoscope of characters.  Not all of the characters know one another, but have other characters in common, through friendship, romance, marriage, family, the music business, monkey business, or just chance.  The stories span a period of about 40 years, from the 1970s to about 2020, and take the reader back and forth in time.  There are thirteen chapters, each told from the point of view of a different protagonist.  As far as setting is concerned, we wander from the therapy couch, to punk clubs of San Francisco, to a plush Park Avenue office, to New York’s polluted East River, to an African safari, to the streets of Naples, to an airfield in a Banana Republic.  Some of the characters are very sleazy, some are very vulnerable, some a little off-kilter.  The author sometimes deals with her characters harshly, and at other times, sympathetically.  So, this book sounds like it might be a mess, right?  Wrong!  It is small miracle of craftsmanship, and it has a very uplifting conclusion.  A Visit from the Goon Squad  by Jennifer Egan.  Put this one on your reading list!