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Book Reviewed by:The long-awaited, daring, and magnificent novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of A Visit from the Goon Squad.
Manhattan Beach opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family.
Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to men. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career with the Ziegfeld Follies, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a nightclub, she chances to meet Dexter Styles again, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father's life, the reasons he might have vanished.
Mesmerizing, hauntingly beautiful, with the pace and atmosphere of a noir thriller, Egan's first historical novel is a masterpiece, a deft, startling, intimate exploration of a transformative moment in the lives of women and men, America and the world. Manhattan Beach is a spectacular novel by one of the greatest writers of our time.
At times the depth of research assembled in Manhattan Beach threatens to overwhelm the narrative. Dense passages devoted to naval maneuvers, war action and diving technique and safety, although interesting and beautifully written, slow the action. Anna's character and story, however, are compelling and thought-provoking. Egan is highly successful at bringing her to life and her choices and decisions keep the pages turning...continued
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(Reviewed by Kate Braithwaite).
In Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan has produced a closely researched exploration of life in New York City during World War II and describes a range of ways in which New York women became involved in the war effort.
Brooklyn Navy Yard
During the 1930s a small number of women worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, almost exclusively in administrative positions. But with America's entry into World War II, that changed radically. From August 1942 onward, women began working in trade jobs – shopfitting, driving, welding and operating elevators. The Yard, which had been in existence since 1806, expanded to 282 acres, cover approximately 0.4 square miles of land. Within its boundaries there were five miles of streets lined with warehouses, ...
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A bounteous miracle that makes you feel that past time, and our time, differently; everything becomes freshly energized, infused with humanity, vital, sad, and full of importance. To see the world through Egan’s eyes is to be moved, through language, to new adoration of the world. I don’t know a better writer working today. There is a generosity in her prose that is vastly enlivening to its reader and brings about that beautiful effect fiction sometimes causes: more, and better-grounded, fondness for reality, just as it is.
