Back and forth she went, deeper-deeper still-until it seemed there was no place further down she could go. And when she returned to her father, holding his hand as they ventured out into the city, it was her mother and Lydia she shook off, often forgetting them completely. And yet each element feels essential and flows into the next without a ripple, with the theme and the structure set out early for us by the young Anna:Įach time Anna moved from her father's world to her mother and Lydia's, she felt as if she'd shaken free of one life for a deeper one. She also includes aspects of a variety of genres: a gangster noir, a feminist drama, a romance, and even a survival-at-sea story. Her characters talk like people talk, with much left unspoken.Īlthough the time frame and character selection are more limited, this book develops in ways that make it difficult to call it just a historical novel as she smoothly transitions from an upper-class children's nursery to an old-school mobster canning vegetables.

In each scene she gets the tone just right and leaves space for subtext. That said, all of those hallmarks are still part of Egan's exceptional style, as is her strong use of taut dialogue. Yes, in many ways, this is purposefully a much more traditional book than Egan's experimental work in her sprawlingly powerful A Visit from the Goon Squad where the reader moves through a myriad of perspectives and approaches, and even journeys to the near future. The book is solving the mystery of Eddie's disappearance in the space between these two key moments, but it also spends much of its time on Anna's trials of navigating the 'appropriate' behavior for a young woman in regards to work, family, and relationships while continuing to ask these questions of 'appropriate' behavior-or how to live in a life-for other characters, such as Eddie and Dexter in their own, and overlapping, milieux. Then the novel jumps forward to focus on Anna's experiences at the Navy Yard during World War II where she breaks many gender barriers, including becoming a diver for the war effort.

Our focus is primarily on father Eddie and elder daughter Anna as they meet the suave mobster, perfectly named Dexter Styles.

At the start we meet the Kerrigan family of Eddie and Agnes and their children Anna and Lydia. Manhattan Beach begins during the Depression on the shores of New York where economics are hard and racketeering and corruption are thriving. Jennifer Egan's writing continues to reach depths that reveal worlds to us both familiar and new through her dexterous attention to the story and the words.

Manhattan beach novel review