Benjamin Kessler’s novella The Pinnacle is set in a near-future version of New York City that feels uncomfortably close to our present moment. In it, our unnamed narrator spends weeklong shifts in The Pinnacle, the world’s tallest building—though the purpose of the building, and even its construction, remain unclear. Is it an engineering marvel or the world’s largest Ponzi scheme? Behind the building is the equally-mysterious Robison-Moon corporation, a faceless, seemingly purposeless company that sees our narrator and his coworkers as expendable cogs, or worse.
It’s perhaps cliché to describe a novella as a “gem,” but in the case of The Pinnacle, it’s an apt description. Each facet of this book—each description, each character, each plot move—gleams with the care and specificity of this narrator’s singular voice. But the outsized power of this novella resides in its totality.
While The Pinnacle is, among many other things, a vital critique of capitalism’s brutal effects on the individual, the heart of the story is something more complex, more human. It’s a book about the loneliness of our era, the ways in which we connect, and fail to connect with, those closest to us—our romantic partners, our parents. What does it mean, in a time of instant connection and pleasure, to feel so disconnected, so dissatisfied?
I met Benjamin in the first class I taught in the PSU MFA program in 2017, when he was working on an excellent novel about a professional baseball player. We recently spoke by phone about writing, The Pinnacle, and the majesty of superstructures.
Gabriel Urza: What would be your “elevator pitch” for The Pinnacle? Why write this particular story now?
Benjamin Kessler: As a society, it feels like we’re using rapid advancements in technology not to better the lives of those most in need but rather as tools to sustain those already in privileged positions. Superstructures are at the core of this. Who benefits from something like the Burj Khalifa? Certainly not those who are forced to live in its shadow or the workers forced to survive in poverty before, during, and after its construction. I wanted to put that idea under a microscope.
GU: I’m surprised to hear that your initial impulse was the external world because this book feels so centralized on the narrator, an individual, and his internal response to everything.
BK: I wanted to utilize the point of view of someone actively involved in one of these kinds of projects. What’s it like to exist with all the normal stressors—bills, maintaining relationships, and, in this narrator’s case, addiction—while also working on one of these larger-than-life endeavors? How do you feed the machine while simultaneously aware that the machine is trying to price you out of existence?
GU: This is set in the future but, psychologically, it isn’t all that different from the moment we’re in today.
BK: Exactly. The present of this story is closer than we think, I believe.
GU: The narrator in this book has this almost complete lack of connection to the outside world when he’s working. Why did you make that choice?
BK: Isn’t that how most people feel? Like their day job is keeping them from what they really want to do? Of course, what the narrator in this book wants to do is drink, so I thought it would create a lot of friction if I withheld what he wants for an extended period of time. It felt like a conflict springboard.
GU: There’s also the friction of his job feeling kind of meaningless.
BK: I think a lot of people find that what they do for work has this numbing effect, especially since they’ll never see the rewards of the end result. Their bosses might, of course. That’s another source of conflict in the book, this idea of putting yourself into a role or job that ultimately doesn’t care about you beyond your contribution to EBITDA.
GU: Switching gears to the craft aspects of this book, tell me about the setting. Why did you choose New York City?
BK: I wanted to pick a place that felt like it constricted the narrator. Him and his partner actually live in New Haven, Connecticut, priced out, as it were, from living in the same place where the narrator works. This distance felt like it raised the stakes. Communication becomes harder and commuting is yet another strain.
GU: But why New York specifically?
BK: It’s where it started, right, this emphasis on skyscrapers. I also wanted to poke at this idea that lots of people have—because they live in the Western, developed world—that their society is free from atrocity, from worker mistreatment and abuse.
GU: You’re fictionalizing here, of course.
BK: Totally, but just in the details. I’m making up the technology and the state of NYC and some of the infrastructure but I feel like that gives me power to write the story in a way that serves its themes best. I’m labeling this as fiction, so I feel empowered to lean on suspension of disbelief to help accomplish what I want.
GU: And then of course there’s the supernatural. Tell me about the Spike.
BK: I really wanted an unexplained, fantastical aspect to this story. Superstructures themselves feel almost supernatural. The Spike—the stabilizing device that runs through the building’s center—is this magical object, and I didn’t want its mechanics to be understood by the narrator or the reader. M. R. James, the English scholar, has this idea about supernatural stories that I really enjoy, that there shouldn’t be an explanation of the machinery, no nuts-and-bolts diagram of how the supernatural works. And that’s how I feel about superstructure engineering a bit, that I have no idea how it came to be. There’s a power in that, a majesty. Maybe it makes them more ominous or frightening.
GU: You’ve created a portal into a character that we may have otherwise not had access to.
BK: Plus it’s fun. For a long time I was terrified of someone going into my writing and searching for plot holes or places where I hadn’t dissected every little thing. I think it stopped me from telling the stories I wanted. Once I decided to fully commit to the mystery I found I was able to enjoy my writing process more. No one needles Charles Dickens for having ghosts appear in A Christmas Carol, so why not use the supernatural in a similar way?
GU: You talk about a lack of explanation being helpful with the Spike, but almost running counter to that is the emphasis on the specificity of language. It’s so exact.
BK: I’m a specificity hound when it comes to worldbuilding. It comes part and parcel with fictionalizing. I always strive to create the most complete and memorable version of physical space. Maybe it’s my educational background in geography or just an interest in the minute as part of the whole. But it also replicates lived experience. In Portland, we don’t ride “the train”; we ride “The Max,” for example. I’m always telling my students to write like a local, even in their imagined universe. Saunders is an expert, and I always look to his stories as the embodiment of the power of specificity in language. But, again, like with the supernatural stuff, it’s just fun. Coming up with a brand name for a beer or the dystopian details of a new social media app is an opportunity to let your mind run wild. I sometimes forget that writing should be enjoyable, and specificity helps me access that.
Benjamin Kessler is the author of The Pinnacle (Buckman Publishing, 2025) and the story collection Of This World (Game Over Books, 2023). A Portland State University MFA alum, he now lives in Berlin with his family.