Book Review: Manhattan Beach

(Found for free in library box outside of a church near our house.) I enjoyed Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, Look at Me and Emerald City, so when I found a free copy of Manhattan Beach, I snatched it up. As with her previous works, this is a well-written, engrossing story, also extremely well-researched about the period (the Depression and WWII). But I had trouble caring about the three protagonists and figuring out Egan's theme or message to the reader. Is it the shifting nature of identity? Anna, the female diver, her father Eddie, a small-time semi-hood, and his boss Dexter, a big -time hood, all have to take on different guises when necessity or opportunity prevails. They each must take extreme measures to survive and maybe that's Egan's message about America in this era. Economic disaster and war drastically alter the lives of all.

The stories intertwine and the final resolution was satisfying as far as the father and daughter go, but without revealing too much, Dexter just drops out of the picture and his story is not resolved. Also I didn't get the reasons why Eddie and Dexter meet similar fates.

But Egan does get the evocation of New York in the 1930s and '40s right. The social morays and standards which dictate the characters' choices are clear. I also liked the supporting characters Brianne, Anna's hard-bitten but practical aunt, and Nell, Anna's worldly girlfriend, as well as Dexter's depressed desperate sister-in-law. A mixed bag.