A Visit from the Goon Squad

I started reading this because I saw it on a bunch of "top ten" lists for 2010. I was pleasantly surprised..based on the description I wasn't sure I'd like it. The novel is so incredibly unique (there is a chapter done in powerpoint for instance). It's kind of like a pulp fiction type premise where characters collide and are in some way related to one another. One thing about this book--there are a lot of characters to keep track of. Minute characters in one chapter end up being important characters later on. I'm not complaining, it definitely kept it interesting, but its something to watch out for. This is a really good read. Here is the premise of the book courtesy of goodreads.com:

"Jennifer Egan’s spellbinding new work circles Bennie Salazar, an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and Sasha, the passionate, troubled young woman he employs. Bennie and Sasha never discover each other’s pasts, but the reader does, in intimate detail, along with the secret lives of a host of other people whose paths intersect with theirs in the San Francisco 1970s music scene, the demimonde of Naples, New York at many points along the way from the pre-Internet nineties to a postwar future, and on a catastrophic safari into the heart of Africa. We meet Lou, Bennie’s charismatic, careless mentor; Scotty, the young musician who slipped off the grid; the uncle facing a failed marriage who goes in search of seventeen-year-old Sasha when she disappears into Italy; and the therapist on whose couch she dissects darker compulsions.

A Visit from the Goon Squad is a book about time, survival, and the electrifying sparks ignited at the seams of our lives by colliding destinies. Sly, surprising, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers."