Manhattan Beach is a historical novel that begins in 1934 and continues through World War II. Its main character is Anna Kerrigan. Her father Eddie Kerrigan is the second most important character with the mobster Dexter Styles coming in third in this novel that teems with many other characters. Despite the abundance of players in the story, all characters even the least significant ones are deftly drawn.

The novel is narrated in limited third-person mainly from three different points of view, while furtively touching, on and off, other points of view along the way.

The main symbol in the story is the ocean with its limitlessness and secretive ability. The primary theme of the story has to do with the effect fathers have, through their presence or absence, on their children. Secondary themes are women’s roles versus Anna’s ideals, sibling relationships especially between Anna and Lydia, power versus powerlessness, men versus women, the effect of time, and lust and its consequences, etc. All these and then some are connected in many original ways that the reader understands mostly through their implications, which I think is the primary strength of this novel.

One has to give applause also to the amount of research that must have gone into this story, even though the story flows well without making the reader feel that the research has taken over the story. I believe this is just another strength of this author’s pen.

It is difficult to talk about the plot without giving it away totally because the story has many twists and turns and many different kinds of relationships, especially among the three primary characters. The story begins in 1934 in New York City with the eleven-year-old Anna Kerrigan and his father visiting the home of a man, an up and coming mobster, Dexter Styles as Eddie Kerrigan seeks employment from Styles.

Sometime later, Eddie Kerrigan leaves home without a trace. During World War II, Anna is a young woman of nineteen, the sole breadwinner for her mother and crippled sister. She takes a job at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, but when she sees undersea divers, the idea appeals to her and she begins the process of becoming a diver, despite the prejudice of the time against women. As she becomes a diver into the New York Harbor for lost objects, she is also diving, figuratively, for the lost things in her life.

What will become of Dexter Styles and his relationship with Anna and will Anna’s father show up sometime later in the novel is for the readers to find out.

I enjoyed reading this novel a lot for the things the author shows the readers and just as much, if not more, for the things she hints at and for her expert mindreading ability when she delves into the minds of her characters. Plus, I liked all the characters, even those that belonged to the syndicate, as all were presented with their positive and negative sides intact.

On the other hand, I felt the ending could be better handled rather than rushed somewhat. Still, I don’t know how the author could elaborate more on the ending of an already hefty novel.

appreciating how much strong characterization elevates the quality of historical novels.

plot weaving and fully developed characterization.

how the author cropped up the ending. Although it is understandable that she didn't want to lose her readers by making the book far too long.

read her other Pulitzer-winning novel.

surprised that there were women like Anna at a time when the treatment of women lacked common sense.

is Jennifer Egan, an American novelist best known for her 2010 novel A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won both the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for fiction and National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.

It reads like an epic but the story is good and you might like it even better if you like an author taking her time with her scenes.

I loved the metaphoric qualities of this novel and its drawing conclusive parallels among the social strata and economic conclusions. In addition, the roles of fathers and father-figures in people's lives are stressed heavily.

Then the main characters move in a fluent fashion like the sea from scene to scene and from perspective to perspective while the author shows to the readers who they are and what they feel and think inside.

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Created Jun 22, 2019 at 8:29pm • Submit your own review...