NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A New York Times Notable Book Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction The daring and magnificent novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, Esquire, Vogue, The Washington Post, The Guardian, USA TODAY, and Time Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, … TODAY, and Time
Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men.
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 once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.
“A magnificent achievement, at once a suspenseful noir intrigue and a transporting work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft” (The Boston Globe), “Egan’s first foray into historical fiction makes you forget you’re reading historical fiction at all” (Elle). Manhattan Beach takes us into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men in a dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world.
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This was a well researched journey through the US past history!
Jennifer Egan is a tremendous writer. Manhattan Beach is historical fiction and so much more: beautifully rendered characters, fascinating historical information, with intrigue and a mystery woven in. Top Notch.
Great insight into New York City during wartime, and women working at the docks doing “Men’s work”. Very inspirational!
Immensely enjoyable, a great old-fashioned yarn. Last 50-75 pages, especially, are gorgeously written.
One of the best books that I have ever read––by far.
This is Egan’s first historical novel, and it takes a while to get into it. But stick with it! It’s a fabulous story of little known history of women working at home in WWII. It goes from the glittery world of glamour and yes the mob, to those who become divers attending to great ships in the Brooklyn Harbor. Fascinating people, an unusual love story and rich, rewarding writing.
Simply fabulous! Finely and and sensitively drawn characters in a complex and suspenseful plot that had me from the beginning.
Anna, the main character, is a risk-taker, inspirational, but totally plausible. She is the first women diver among those helping the WWII war effort in Brooklyn’s Manhattan Beach shipyards. Her relationships with her mother, father, and sister are by turns, tender, responsible, and troubled. Other characters, who run the gamut from upright to unsavory, lead her to her father, who has disappeared.
This book is so good..loved from the very beginning to the very end..wanted it to go on..
JENNIFER Egan has written an engaging historical novel that reminds me f the best of F Scott Fitzgerald
I loved the first two thirds of “Manhattan Beach” by Jennifer Egan and the wistful, nostalgic tone in which it was written. The ambitious and complex story line captivated me from the start. Egan lets us get inside her character’s heads without being overly descriptive. She gives us just enough and leaves the rest to the imagination. The two main male characters are full of regrets. Her father, an erstwhile gangster bagman, blunders through life and becoming overly confident, makes a tragic misjudgment that costs him everything. Gangster Dexter Stiles, his boss, yearns for a legitimacy he cannot attain, even anglicizing his Italian name.
Of the three main characters, only resilient Anna moves forward in an upward, positive trajectory, all the while dealing with tragedy. Is is because she is young and not yet defeated by life? I enjoy books that make me think and I think this is an important book.
For all you West Coast Sun Lovers, this isn’t about that Manhattan Beach. This is about Manhattan Beach off the Brooklyn Borough. The story starts near the beginning of the depression and takes us through the almost-end of WWII.
My depression seemed to coincide with reading this book. I was taken in by all the awards it garnered and the fact it was purportedly a psychological thriller. Seriously, that’s what the critics said. They loved this book. Me? Not so much.
Anna, the eldest, lives with her Mother, Father, and sister in a sixth floor walk up with communal bath on each floor – not exactly The Pierre. Her sister is physically disabled. She must have something wrong with her vertebrae, or neck, because she’s kind of a gummy bear and is unable to do more than lie there. So it’s really sad at home – Dad would rather be drinking with his gangster pals than be home with a girl he feels repulsed by and guilty for producing. Good times.
Great news – Dad disappears. Was he murdered or did he leave on his own volition? Such is the only mystery in this story, except why I continued reading it. Anna finally breaks the gender gap and becomes the first female diver great at repairing ships being sent out for wartime duties. That’s kinda cool, but then there’s more blah, blah, and double blah.
As for being a thriller – that came on page 582 when I knew I had only two pages left to read. I was thrilled!
Clearly one of the best novels of 2017. Beautiful prose, moving characters, rich historical detail of wartime shipbuilding and organized crime in New York. A bold female protagonist facing off against powerful yet sympathetic male antagonists. Highly recommend.