The Sopranos meet On The Waterfront, I enjoyed this very much. Characters well drawn and the setting well observed. A good read.

I have to admit to not having read any of Jennifer Egan's work previously, but rest assured with this book I know it will be the first of many. She writes with the authority of a well researched background and her use of beautiful English prose is very much in the Michener idiom.

The story manages to intertwine the progress of a young girl Anna - whose father had abandoned his family who wishes to do "her bit" for the American war effort in the early 1940s with the upward progress of a gangster / nightclub owner. Add into this mix, the background story of the trials and tribulations of her father as he makes his way through life from low level criminal to a wartime merchant seaman then you get a superb story woven by Egan into an unforgettable novel.

Egan's use of English can be highlighted by the following snippet spoken by an unusual but erudite Nigerian bosun who found himself subservient to the rising fortunes of Anna's wayward father. "....if you will permit me ...(a) bracingly candid response....Men so far outside my intellectual scope do not normally crave extensive and repeated interactions.....it would imply that our inner lives had the slightest modicum of solidarity.."

Just read this book, trust me you will thank me later.

An island of brilliance in a sea of dross

It’s been some time since I read something quite as good as this: basically, the story of a girl, her father and the vicissitudes of life – but, also, of so much more. I was tempted to say that it’s a story of the sea but that might be a bit of a stretch!

Nevertheless, though that might seem somewhat odd in novel that begins in 1920s New York, the sea is ever present and its narrative influence on the main characters, whether driven or drifting, permeates the story throughout.

The prose is often luminous, the characterization rich, the story rich and compelling. If you pick up this book and begin reading you will be doing yourself a great favour!

Thank you to NetGalley and Corsair for allowing me to review this book.
Set in New York, the book follows the life of a girl growing up through WWII. It has love, betrayal, intrigue and hope as it’s key themes.
I enjoyed the book, it’s well written and I liked the various twists though storyline. I didn’t find it a ‘couldn’t put it down’ book though and therefore it took me longer than expected to read.

Manhattan Beach is an intriguing story set in New York just before and during World war 2. It follows a family whose lives we see unfolding as world problems escalate. The mob culture and the way society is divided by race, class and gender are all covered in this book following Anna as she grows up and her father disappears mysteriously. When her life become entwined with the person who knows what happened the story gets even darker. Jennifer Egan has written a real page turner with an unusual setting in the Naval Yards of New York

This is the first book from Jennifer Egan that I have read and I loved the historical context and the "fact" that some ladies do still manage to make their (positive) mark in a male dominated society. The overall level of detail kept me reading to the end - but - have to say that I found the parts of the story really didn't join up very well and I am sad about that.

I'm afraid I couldn't get on with Manhattan Beach. It's decently written and Jennifer Egan has plainly researched the period meticulously, but I found it rather turgid, with unconvincing characters and, frankly, dull.

I wholeheartedly approve of one of the central themes of this novel, in which Anna grows up in the middle years of the 20th Century and wants to become a naval diver, battling the attitudes of the time toward women. The trouble is that Egan never managed to bring either Anna or the story truly alive for me. I found her style rather plodding and off-putting, with the occasional sentence like "Beyond the windows of an adjacent front room, the sea tingled under a thin winter sun," which just felt mannered to me. I also think that Egan is rather too keen on showing us exactly how much detailed research she has done, rather than simply using it unobtrusively to paint a convincing background, so wading through it all became a bit of a chore after a while.

As a result of all this, I found Manhattan Beach a real struggle. I had expected to like it very much, but ended up skimming some parts and feeling rather relieved to have finished it. Others have found it very good, but personally I can't recommend it.

I'm afraid that the start was terribly slow, it started to pick up a bit from about a quarter of the way in, and then lost me again at the half way point. The novel wears its research quite heavily and each time the perspective shifts it feels like you have to try to re-establish your relationship with the book. For a novel that was so heavily hyped, it was a bit lacklustre. Sorry :(

Anna grows up in the Depression when her father is in desperate need to provide for his wife an ex- Zefield dancer, Anna and her beautiful disabled sister. Eddie becomes involved with Dexter Styles who is married to a socialite but who rules the underworld for his patron Q. Life seems to be perfect until Eddie disappears and his daughter applies to work at the Naval Yard where she fights discrimation to become a naval diver. The prose evokes the the experiences of diving and the whole novel describes vividly the wartime lives of those involved in the convoys undertaken by the merchant navy. How Anna and Eddie survive what life throws at them makes for a page turning novel.

Having read the blurb about the most anticipated book of 2017 I approached this keenly. While I enjoyed it, the book didn't live up to the hype. A bit slow in places for me, although I could see the social subtleties behind the prose. How the family and the wider community dealt with Anna's disabled sister. Anna becoming accepted as a diver. And the story behind it was a bit of an easy coincidence of meeting and having a relationship. Having very recently visited New York for the first time, the piers etc were of great interest as I could imagine the areas. A struggle to keep going sometimes and not one I'd recommend.

This review for Manhattan Beach is one of the hardest I have had to write. I have started to write it several times but each time I came near my kindle to get a few quotes to put in my review I found myself finding some other task to occupy myself with instead. The idea of having to read any more of the book just put me off completely.
Many times, whilst reviewing books I have decided not to finish them knowing they weren’t for me, but Manhattan Beach was different because there was the occasional glimmer to interest me and entice me back. The result of this was that around 58% of the way through I decided to give up on the book and to avoid picking up my kindle for a few days, so I wouldn’t be tempted and disappointed again. The few days ended up spiralling into an almost month-long reading slump.
Today I decided that enough was enough and It was finally time to start writing the review but without any quotes from the book.
It is hard to explain what this book was about it because that is one of the main things I struggled to determine whilst reading it as it chops and changes and goes off on some very dull tangents. It begins with a 12-year-old girl named Anna accompanying her father on a business trip to see a man named Mr Styles.
I found this first part of the book interesting and enjoyed the way the author described Anna’s experiences in a house so vastly different from her own. I also enjoyed reading about her father’s desire to be a good father and husband despite his inability to love his disabled daughter in the same way his wife and Anna were able to.
After this portion of the book there were vast portions where I felt like I really wanted to give up. I was interested in Anna’s experiences of trying to establish herself in a job which before the war had been male dominated. I also liked reading about how her experience of the job differed from the experience of her married colleague.
The point where it lost me again was when the book went off on a tangent about diving and Anna’s ambition to be the first female diver. If I hadn’t have had thirty minutes of my lunch break left with nothing to do, then I would have given up on the book at this point.
If the book had just been about Anna and her mother’s struggles to look after her sister Lydia, or solely about Anna’s working life then maybe I would have stuck it out. Likewise, if it had simply been a description of life as part of the mob then I would have enjoyed it more. My problem with Manhattan Beach is that I can’t really say it was about anything and each part didn’t fit smoothly with any other part. I was left wondering what the point was and why I had wasted so much time on this book.
I am sure there are reasons why some people found this book wonderful and there are so many good reviews of it but personally I cannot think of any.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish this book, it held no interest for me.

I almost enjoyed this book. I was really interested in Anna’s story and the mystery that is set up in the early chapters. Sadly nothing was explored in any detail and the swapping between timelines and points of view frustrated me. I was also ultimately disappointed in the ending which just seemed so hum drum. It had a lot of potential but just wasn’t what I was anticipating from the early chapters. You’d be better off re-reading the great gatsby.

I just couldn't get on with the book and gave up. It just wasnt for me.

The blurb for this book doesn't really reveal much about the plot, and I spent a lot of time trying to work out what it was: a family saga? a war novel? a love story? a gangster thriller? an ode to diving? a thirties NYC drama?
The answer is all of the above, and a lot more. It's a meandering novel set over several years, with a cast of POV characters all leading back to a girl called Anna. I love Anna a lot: she's powerful, in a very physical, determined way. She becomes a diver building war ships in WWII, in a time when diving meant carrying around a lead weighted suit as heavy as a man, and breathing through a tube stretching up to the surface. Nobody wants to let a woman do it, but she's passionate and good at the job, and she gets there. That's my favourite storyline, but there are many many more in this book - her father's middle aged crisis/shipwreck/run from the law, her lover's determination to turn good and end his gangster hustling, her disabled sister's desperation for mental stimulation, her mother's late-life freedom.
I'm not sure I'd have picked up this book if I wasn't already a fan of Egan - there really isn't a high concept hook to it. But I'm really glad I did, because it's a very solid, well researched dive into a very specific transitional time in history, when male and female roles in society - and the grey area between legal and illegal activities - became blurred.

I might have been a bit unjust in the two star rating but this book just did not appeal to me. I managed to read a quarter but could not see where it was leading so e fed up giving up on it

I found the book very slow and had to struggle to keep going. The story picked up but at places did lose its spark. Im glad I did finish it though but it did take me a long time to finish it.

Manhattan Beach navigates the life of Anna as a young woman growing up in a challenging period where attitudes towards women and women's attitude to their own lives and possibilities are changing dramatically. I felt the ending was disappointing, after getting to know this strong minded individual and her friends and family the book just fizzled out.

Manhattan Beach is told from the perspective of 3 main characters; Anna Kerrigan, her father Eddie and local business man/gangster Dexter Styles. Set during WWII, Anna works at the Naval Yard and seeks more than her medial job measuring small parts for war ships.
I really enjoyed Manhattan Beach. Initially I struggled, but soon I just had to keep reading. The book is descriptive and sets the scene perfectly. You can imagine the Naval Yard, the streets, the bars, the houses and that is all down to Jennifer Egan's wonderfully descriptive writing. I did find that some parts were bogged down with technical details that were a little heavy on detail and made for a difficult few paragraphs of reading but its easy to negate them based on the rest of the book.
Anna's character is wonderful. She has so much charm, energy, love, warmth, determination and wit that it really brings her character to life.
Eddie is a family man. Working hard to earn money for his family, he sees where the money lies but refuses to get involved in the illegality of the criminal underworld. He is a moral man who wants to support his family. For a lot of the book, Eddie is a mystery to us and this helps to build intrigue.
Dexter is a local business man who runs nightclubs and various other establishments. He has dealings with the criminal underworld and works for the mysterious Mr Q who calls all the shots. There is something very likeable about Dexter's character. We see him change throughout the book and learn more about him and it made me actually enjoy his character and want to see more from him.
I always find books told from multiple perspectives the best and Manhattan Beach does this well.
I gave Manhattan Beach 3 stars for while I enjoyed it, I wasn't blown away by it or addicted to it. It was a good read and well written and the characters all well established. There was a few parts that confused me a little but overall a good story.
Thank you to NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Don't expect another Visit from the Goon Squad from Jennifer Egan - Manhattan Beach is an entirely different thing altogether. Set in the hungry 30s, it is the story of the Kerrigan family, told mainly through the eyes of Anna, the elder daughter.

Anna works at the Naval Yard, sizing parts for ships - an important but repetetive job. She dreams of becoming a diver, of donning the diving 'dress' and going down to fix ships below the waterline. Her chance comes when the war starts to cut down the numbers of good male divers. Anna fights prejudice at work through the day and helps her mother care for her disabled sister, Lydia, at night. Her father, Eddie, whose story this also is, has disappeared.

Eddie operates on the fringes of the mob. Involved first with the Irish longshoremen and waterfront tough guys, he hooks up with Dexter Styles, a man who himself straddles the divide between legitimacy and criminality. Styles runs nightclubs for Mr Q, an aging Italian mobster. Eddie becomes his bagman.

Slow to start, this novel gradually pulled me in. At first it seemed as though nothing much was happening and at times I had very little sense of where it was going. Once I became involved in it, however, I realised that the book was a kind of experiment, an attempt perhaps at the Great American Novel. It is a Moby Dick of a book: we get long (possibly overlong) accounts of war work, diving, shipboard life; we learn intricate details of how people lived - what they ate, drank, wore, played with as children.

Detail is piled on detail and it will depend on the reader whether this is seen as an added richness or an irritating diversion. I was, at times, torn between these views but overall came down on the side of richness. Once one gives in and goes with it, rewards are reaped. I don't think Manhattan Beach fully works as a 'great' novel but it is a valiant attempt.