By Jennifer Egan
Scribner
This latest from Jennifer Egan is an entirely different kettle of fish from her last novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize.
That’s not to say Manhattan Beach isn’t good – it is – but only to say don’t expect more like the Goon Squad with its time shifting and groovy alternative story forms.
Manhattan Beach is a more straightforward novel; time is quite firmly rooted here.
It is the story of Anna Kerrigan, who grows up in Brooklyn during the Great Depression. The novel begins when she is 12 years old and carries readers through her young adult years during the Second World War.
In the beginning, Anna lives in a workaday apartment with her mother, father and disabled sister Lydia. She often accompanies her dad when he goes to work – his work appears to be as some sort of messenger for a union. They visit the homes of other men, who often invite him in for a drink while Anna plays with their children. On one memorable evening, they visit the home of Dexter Styles, a mysterious man Anna learns more about as the story progresses.
Insights into the lives of New York gangsters, showgirls and nightclubs play a starring role in this novel, as does the research Egan did about the Brooklyn Navy Yard and the pursuit of diving.
The Second World War opened up opportunities for women to work in jobs previously occupied only by men and deep sea diving to repair ships in the navy yard was one of them. Anna, who finds work sorting through bits and pieces of ship hardware, longs to be a diver herself.
The story and the setting are interesting, but it’s Egan’s thought processes and turns of phrase that make Manhattan Beach a standout.
Here’s a passage told from Dexter’s perspective, about how his respectable father-in-law convinced Dexter to marry his pregnant daughter, and managed to get Dexter to make concessions.
“And later … Dexter could only marvel at the sleight of hand whereby his father-in-law had jimmied himself out of a straitjacket with enough leverage to extract promises. Houdini couldn’t have topped it: his daughter was knocked up and refused to have it taken care of. Had Arthur withheld his consent, she’d have run away with Dexter: a disgrace. The old man hadn’t had enough room to scratch his nose, yet he’d bargained as if the advantage were all his – intuiting with eerie perspicacity that, although criminal, Dexter was a man of his word.”
The details, the visuals, the emotions and the intensity is Egan’s calling card.
Egan, as well as writing A Visit From the Goon Squad, has written four other books, including The Keep, Emerald City, Look at Me and The Invisible Circus.
This is a beautifully written novel, with a solid plot to back it up.
Jennifer Egan will be appearing at the Vancouver Writers Fest in a special event on October 25.
tracy.sherlock@gmail.com
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