review of manhattan beach by jennifer egan

“Manhattan Beach” loads up on water symbolism: metaphorical deaths and rebirths in the wet stuff, the beach standing in for the permeable borders between the upstanding and the underworld, etc. The irony of this being put in place by a deadly world-wide conflict is not lost on the author. Of this novel’s many layers and aspects, which snap together as the book progresses, what worked best for this reader was a portrait of a Brooklyn, or America, in transition from claustrophobic Depression-ridden treadmill to a wide-open place of possibilities.

Anna’s diving expertise and her specific web of relationships trigger a melodramatic climax and long denouement. As a woman, she must fight daunting obstacles to get the job, whose technical details get plenty of coverage. After months in a boring parts inspection job at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, Anna is strongly drawn to the role of a diver who performs underwater inspections and repairs on warships under construction. There is a lot more than figuring out these men going on in Anna’s life, especially once the U.S. It’s hardly surprising, with a mysterious (and then missing) father, a mother devoted to Anna’s profoundly disabled sister, and her own unwillingness to upset her fragile domestic situation, that Anna would develop layers.Īnna’s father Eddie Kerrigan, and nightclub owner (with additional and less legal business interests) Dexter Styles, whom she first meets at age 11 when her father takes her to Styles’s luxurious home in the titular Manhattan Beach, are the objects of Anna’s ever-evolving fascination, curiosity, longing and anger. The novel, set between 19 mostly in and around Brooklyn, is a unique fusion of literary-toned gangster noir, historical set piece and coming-of-age tale, complete with shifting points of view.Īnna Kerrigan, 11 when the book opens, is the kind of quiet rebel, or benign subversive, who appears to be ordinary and uncomplicated while following her own hidden agenda. That “he never saw it coming” organized crime trope drives the plot of Jennifer Egan’s “Manhattan Beach,” but don’t expect a gangland saga. A character goes from thinking he has a secure foothold in the gangster world to sleeping with the fishes.

Review of manhattan beach by jennifer egan