"Manhattan Beach" by Jennifer Egan

Always wary of reading books that have been highly praised, especially when the author is someone I don't like, I approached "Manhattan Beach" cautiously.  However, unlike some of Egan's other novels, this one is much more straightforward, more of a typical novel in structure than "A Visit From the Goon Squad" from a few years ago. (That novel won her the Pulitzer Prize, which puzzled me.)  I really liked this book and highly recommend it.

"Manhattan Beach" begins in the early 1930's when Anna is a little girl and it ends about thirty years later, after WWII is over and Anna is a grown woman.  In those thirty years we encounter not just Anna but her family, the Irish and Italian underworld crime syndicates who vie for power in New York, the culture of the local Naval shipyard, blatant disregard for the laws of Prohibition and the fledgling rise of women in the workforce during the height of the war. Plus echoes of so much more from those decades of history.

Egan is a masterful writer.  As I read on, the characters developed so fully that I felt they were real, that their voices were those of my own life.  Their lives could have existed on the same plane as mine, that is how believable they seemed to me.  In this novel, Egan reminded me often of Jane Smiley's early writing, where you read a paragraph, look up and away from the page, think about what you just read, and then you read it again. 

"...from the instant she pushed down on the pedals and the bike began to bump over the bricks, Anna felt as though lightning had touched her.  Motion performed alchemy on her surroundings, transforming them from a disjointed array of scenes into a symphonic machine she could soar through invisibly as a seagull .... (with) a strange electric joy swerving through her."

It's not often that I want to own a book.  This book, when it comes to the used book store near me, will be one I buy. If you have a chance, read "Manhattan  Beach" and let me know what you think.

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