Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan (Corsair, £16.99)
In a shape-shifting array of styles, the lives of interconnected characters played out to a cacophonous soundtrack of punk. But in her eagerly awaited new novel, the narrative structure is conventional and the pace sedate, a slow, measured unfurling that takes us from Depression-era New York to the navy yards of the Second World War.Anna Kerrigan is 12.
Her mother is an ex-Ziegfeld Follies dancer, now dedicating her life to caring for Lydia, Anna’s beautiful disabled sister. Her father Eddie, desperate for money, gets entangled with prohibition gangster Dexter Styles.
Anna is tough, courageous and smart, qualities that stand her in good stead when, some years later after Eddie has mysteriously disappeared, she leaves her wartime job in a shipping yard to become a diver repairing ships.
This section of the novel is riveting. Egan brilliantly captures the men’s hostility to a woman taking on a masculine role and her description of Anna’s training is gripping, from donning a 200lb diving “dress” to her claustrophobic descent to the depth of the sea. This careful, detailed immersion in her physical preparations, the psychological freedom the job brings and the camaraderie that it offers in her otherwise lonely life show Egan’s meticulous research at its very best.
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Eddie’s story of a Houdini-like escape and survival at sea also shows Egan at her most engaging.
Less intriguing are the Dexter Styles sections of the novel. There is a hollowness to these tales of corruption and the conventions of organised crime feel over-familiar, undermining the drama and tension.
And that’s the main problem with this uneven novel: the ebb and flow of interest. At times it is buoyant with knowledge and insight but at others it is slow and uninvolving, sinking under the weight of the research that underpins it.