Working a dull job inspecting ship parts at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, Anna seizes the opportunity to become the first female civilian diver there. The 11-year-old can't comprehend their business, but she senses that the two men have become 'friends.' By the time Anna is 19, Eddie has inexplicably vanished and America is in the Second World War. One day he brings his healthy daughter, Anna, to the Manhattan Beach home of Dexter Styles, a nightclub owner with underworld partners. He finds work as a bagman, ferrying bribes for a corrupt union official.

Pulitzer-winner Egan's splendid novel begins in 1934 Brooklyn as Eddie Kerrigan struggles to support his wife and two daughters, one of whom is severely disabled. Manhattan Beach takes us into a world populated by gangsters, sailors, divers, bankers, and union men in a dazzling, propulsive exploration of a transformative moment in the lives and identities of women and men, of America and the world. “A magnificent achievement, at once a suspenseful noir intrigue and a transporting work of lyrical beauty and emotional heft” ( The Boston Globe), “Egan’s first foray into historical fiction makes you forget you’re reading historical fiction at all” ( Elle). 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. She becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women are allowed to hold jobs that once belonged to men, now soldiers abroad. ‎Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. She is mesmerized by the sea beyond the house and by some charged mystery between the two men. Named One of the Best Books of the Year by NPR, Esquire, Vogue, The Washington Post, The Guardian, USA TODAY, and TimeĪnna 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. The daring and magnificent novel from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author. Winner of the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction

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