Manhattan Beach

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Egan, Jennifer, Adult Book / Fiction / Historical / Egan, Jennifer
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

"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"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Well Researched! submitted by kirterry on July 18, 2018, 11:06am Although some of the dramatic parts of this novel felt far fetched, I loved learning about historical topics that aren't usually covered in books about WW2 (including shipbuilding at the New York waterfront and life in the merchant marines).

Great and interesting read submitted by Mguananja on August 15, 2018, 10:07pm A well written historical fiction. Learned a lot and appreciated the tone of women's empowerment.

Meh submitted by sushai on August 23, 2018, 9:28pm I really wanted this to be another Visit from the Goon Squad, but I know that's an unfair thing to do to an author. At its best, this is an inspirational Rosie-the-Riveter-type drama, but the other parts of the plot are convoluted and unrealistic to the point that I lost my concern for what happens to the main character.

Great Sense of Place submitted by Meginator on June 19, 2021, 11:33am This novel is literary fiction with a dash of crime, mystery, and adventure writing, giving it a good balance of plot and introspection. Egan is fantastic at drawing readers into Depression- and World War II-era New York City, and her descriptions of criminality, diving, and long-haul sea voyages are engrossing and atmospheric. I was a little frustrated by the way that characters’ emotional development seemed to rely more on Egan outright stating how they felt (and how that had changed) rather than developing directly from the novel’s events. The atmosphere and plotting were compelling enough that this was more of an annoyance than a dealbreaker for me, but I did find it disappointing given that the book got rave reviews from all the usual places. Still, the setting and story are compelling and the central theme of societal change is strong, and Egan does very well to depict a particular time and place through a lesser-explored lens.