Discussed in this essay:

Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan. Scribner. 448 pages. $28.

It’s always tempting, but almost never fun, to try to see what one looks like from the outside. There’s a glimpse of an American future near the end of Jennifer Egan’s fuguelike novel A Visit from the Goon Squad (2010), and it’s looking pretty bleak. We don’t know quite what year it is, but time has passed, lives have been lived, and disappointments have been swallowed. The air is darkening as ever higher skyscrapers rise all around and surveillance helicopters drone overhead. Communication, even between those…