OMG. I went to B&N and this came home with me and it is gorgeous and I haven't even taken the plastic off yet!! 
 If I weren't reading way too many books at once right now, I'd just plop down and get going. 
 ***HERE THERE BE SPOILERS***(probably, it's hard to talk about this book without spoilers) 
 hearts and souls and lives can themselves be sites of unimaginable suffering. 
 "What is S.?" is quite probably one of the most difficult questions I have ever found myself trying to answer. S. is not so much a novel as it is an experience. S. is a commingling of at least five stories, maybe more. 
 First, there is Ship of Theseus, a novel by V.M. Straka, which is the book in which S. takes place. Ship of Theseus is the story of a man who knows nothing of himself, and the only clues he has to his identity are a scrap of paper with a stylized letter S on it (See the cover) and a woman he sees in a bar who he thinks might know him. 
 Before he can approach her, however, he is taken by rough men and bustled aboard a ship, which sets sail with him. And throughout the book, the man S. searches for himself and for this woman who he is so drawn to, all the while he sails out of time and is sent back into it to fight the evils of men. 
 Second, F.X. Caldeira, the editor and writer of the forward and footnotes within the tome, is sending messages to Straka. Who, within the work, seems to have been sending his own messages to her. Theirs is a heartbreaking love story, discovered within the book by Jen and Eric. 
 Third, Jen, an undergrad, finds a copy of Ship of Theseus in the library and starts to read it, and she writes a note in the book to the owner, who writes back. Eric, an expunged grad student, has been reading Straka since he was a teenager, and together he and Jen begin to discover even more in the text than he had already. And they, too, fall in love, through margin notes and a shared love of Straka's work and the mystery surrounding it. 
 Fourth, Who was V.M. Straka? There is no shortage of theories, but no one knows for sure. It is this question that Eric and Jen (and others) are trying to answer. 
 Fifth, What is the S.? A shadowy organization? A group of writers fighting against the evils of society? Another question Eric and Jen are working to answer. 
 I KNOW, it looks confusing as hell. But it really isn't. I don't know how best to explain it beyond saying that it all weaves together beautifully and wonderfully and I really enjoyed every moment of this intriguing, mysterious ride. 
 I wish V.M. Straka were real so I could read more of his books. 
 What begins at the water shall end there 
 and what ends there shall once more begin.