Manhattan Beach, a novel by Jennifer Egan, captured my attention from beginning to end. The novel covers the early years of World War II through 1944.
When Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit the lovely home of Dexter Styles, she has no idea that Styles is a gangster and that somehow there is a crucial connection between the two men. Styles’ beautiful seaside home is a marvel, its opulence unimaginable to her. Anna lives with her parents and severely crippled sister on the sixth floor of a tenement building.
Years later Anna’s father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard as the first female diver, a dangerous and exclusive occupation. At first experiencing hesitancy and even scorn from her superior and fellow divers, Anna proves herself a valuable asset as an underwater welder repairing ships that will eventually help win the war.
One evening Anna again meets Dexter Styles at a nightclub and begins to understand the relationship between him and her father. As Dexter Styles’ life unfolds, the reader is taken to a world few experience, a lifestyle that has its own set of scruples.
I very much enjoyed Manhattan Beach. The novel brings fresh detail and character to an era that changed the world forever. The author drew me in to the lives of the characters. I especially appreciated the precise details of the hard-hat atmospheric diving apparatus. Having worked as the only female at a professional deep sea diving school, I was particularly interested in the novel’s perspective of the diving profession, especially from a woman’s viewpoint.
With all your accomplishments, you were taught deep sea diving? You’re truly a woman of a thousand lives…
Thank you for posting this review. I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Egan but was turned off by its setting in World War II. It sounds like there’s much more to it than that.
Thank you, Carol. I’ve always been fascinated by deep-sea (hard hat) diving. I think you would love this book–it’s quite intriguing.