NHFT virtual book club meeting #22 - Manhattan Beach

Following our visit to Brixton and splashing around in The Lido, we are crossing the Atlantic to New York and stepping back to the 1930s/1940s with Jennifer Egan in the much deeper waters of Manhattan Beach.

Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to visit Dexter Styles, a man who, she gleans, is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men.

‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. One evening at a nightclub, she meets Dexter Styles again, and begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, the reasons he might have vanished.

"At once a suspenseful novel of noir intrigue, a gorgeously wrought and richly allusive literary tapestry, and a transporting work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft, “Manhattan Beach’’ is a magnificent achievement.” The Boston Globe

The next meeting will be Thursday the 23rd of February at 7pm via MS Teams where we will be discussing the novel. You can find the link via the Events Calendar on the Staff Room.