Jennifer Egan's spellbinding interlocking narratives circle the lives of Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Although Bennie and Sasha never discover each other's pasts, the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other characters whose paths intersect with theirs, over many years, in locales as varied as New York, San Francisco,...

For as long as their family tradition tells, Yosuke Yashiro's family has taken care of a mermaid egg once every sixty years. Once it hatches they return it to the sea, and in return the mermaids bless their seaside town with bountiful catches of fish and calm waters. However, Yosuke's father has gone astray, and now he is using the mermaid egg for financial gain as a tourist attraction. The mermaids withdraw their blessing, and if Yosuke doesn't return...