Missed connections

Decodings and near-recognitions that walk right past each other run all through the novel. Cries for help get "heard 'as figurative rather than literal'"; the one competent decoder of an anti-ad simply walks past it; Mario ferries Big Red Soda Water to a veiled intern he never connects to Madame Psychosis. The motif's centerpiece is Gately standing "face to veil with Madame Psychosis, not realizing" — a "missed connection squared" occurring at the very hour her show goes on air. Its structural signature is spatial and temporal near-miss: Marathe downstairs while Joelle is upstairs, one noise heard through two points of view; the interviewers hunting a cartridge "partially created in the very room in which they are conducting their interview." The thread — one Greg Carlisle also names and tracks — quietly dramatizes the book's larger tragedy: that the people who could save or recognize one another keep crossing without touching.