"P"

Told through varying levels of flashbacks the story unfolds: Benji's obsession with his former lover and adult-film co-star Penny, their developing relationship in college at Ithica and how they came to be separated, leaving Benji where we find him at the beginning of the story. Parallel to that is Finn, a soon-to-be-ten-year-old girl whose intelligence is striking and believable with a mother not paying enough attention after a divorce that they're both still reeling from and a determination to run away. Benji's and Finn's paths cross at the nexus of the novel in the largest and most complicated of the chapters- in the form of a full length screenplay.

To wit, each one of the chapters in the novel is written in a different style and it can be jarring to transition from a chapter composed of newspaper headlines and articles to a full-length screenplay to an interrogation-style question and answer to a stream of consciousness chapter-length sentence. It is in the screenplay that we learn the most about Benji's background and his path-crossings with Finn, thus the only true semblance of a plot kicks in and it is largely, of course, a metaphorical one. These characters aren't journeying much physically, but their emotional journeys, as in all great books, are what carry us through to the end.

The physical journey is nothing to be scoffed out, however, and New Yorkers are allowed to relish a special delight in affirming the accuracy of Benji's and Finn's voyage from the Times Square subway station through the intimidating, rat filled darkness of a subway tunnel to their emergence in Brooklyn and the description of physical landmarks through their taxi-ride back to Manhattan. Through this mapped-out meandering we realize that there is no better city in which to represent the whole of the world crammed in to such a tiny space with such little room to breathe than New York City.

Neither for the feint of heart nor for the casual reader, P is a novel of intricate complexities. Rewarding in its references (for it always feels like a silent pat on the back from the writer if the reader gets his allusions), shocking in its audacity (you might spend half your time wondering why Disney doesn't sue Conn and his publishers for one particularly dirty scene involving their characters), and ultimately, necessary. P makes a grand statement about our times. A summation of influences from all great art coalescing and evolving into what Conn so aptly sees as the tragedy of modern culture; the degradation of the quality of our lives through the newly acquired ability to have instant gratification at our fingertips- it's the shallowness of our conveniences that Conn seems to despise and not the people- us, who use them. In the harrowing journey of his modern Odysseus he gives us one glimpse of all that humanity has created that is great and juxtaposes it with the steadily-rising culture of convenience that, in his estimation, is pulling us down. He show us that not all is entirely right or wrong with either, but that it's how we use them that ultimately shape the voyage of our lives.