Reviews
"Immensely satisfying . . . [Manhattan Beach] is a dreadnought of a World War II-era historical novel, bristling with armaments yet intimate in tone. It's an old-fashioned page-turner, tweaked by this witty and sophisticated writer so that you sometimes feel she has retrofitted sleek new engines inside a craft owned for too long by James Jones and Herman Wouk. . . . She is masterly at displaying mastery. . . . Egan's fiction buzzes with factual crosscurrents, casually deployed. . . . Egan works a formidable kind of magic . . . This is a big novel that moves with agility." --Dwight Garner, New York Times, Advanced Praise for Manhattan Beach: "Egan's propulsive, surprising, ravishing, and revelatory saga, a covertly profound page-turner that will transport and transform every reader, casts us all as divers in the deep, searching for answers, hope, and ascension." -- Booklist (starred review), "It's an astutely executed piece of historical literature that's also unafraid to indulge in the thrills of its rich plot." --Minneapolis City Pages, "Reading Manhattan Beach feels restorative . . . deeply imagined . . . [and] very, very welcome." -- Slate, Groundbreaking... Features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human., "Egan's prose is transparent and elegant. . . .But the chief joy of reading Manhattan Beach lies in diving under the surface pleasures of the plot (which are plentiful -- it's immersive and compelling), and sinking slowly to its dark and unknowable depths. There are deep truths there." -- Vox, "Manhattan Beach is an enthralling work of historical fiction that weaves together beautiful imagery, an immersive story, and compelling characters into a single story of family secrets and unconditional love."- My San Antonio, "An unusually well written, well researched, emotionally satisfying page-turner . . . Manhattan Beach is the kind of book you can immerse yourself in happily." - Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle, "Egan's propulsive, surprising, ravishing, and revelatory saga, a covertly profound page-turner that will transport and transform every reader, casts us all as divers in the deep, searching for answers, hope, and ascension." -- Booklist (starred review), "A work of remarkable cinematic scope. . . . This is a novel that will pull you in and under and carry you away on its rip tides. . . . Its resonances continue to wash over the reader long after the novel ends." - The Guardian UK, "[Egan's] prose moves in a way that feels effortless, a sure sign that it's anything but. . . . It's the best sort of historical fiction, transporting the reader to another place without ever loosing bonds of the familiar. Egan's characters are vivid, their authenticity a kind of wonder, their losses and joys achingly true. . . . Egan sets the knot, and we are all in thrall." --O, The Oprah Magazine, "Tremendously assured and rich, moving from depictions of violence and crime to deep tenderness. The book's emotional power once again demonstrates Egan's extraordinary gifts." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review), "This large, ambitious novel shows Egan at the top of her game. Anna is a true feminist heroine, and her grit and tenacity will make readers root for her." -- Library Journal (starred review), "After stretching the boundaries of fiction in myriad ways...Egan does perhaps the only thing left that could surprise: she writes a thoroughly traditional novel. Realistically detailed, poetically charged, and utterly satisfying: apparently there's nothing Egan can't do." -- Kirkus (starred review), "Excellent . . . . Manhattan Beach is a fleet, sinuous epic, abounding with evocative details, felicitous metaphors, and crystalline historical assessments. . . . Egan seamlessly zooms out and in throughout Manhattan Beach , a novel that magnificently captures the country on the brink of triumph and triumphalism." -- Bookforum, "Jennifer Egan . . . continues a string of wildly various and imaginative novels with Manhattan Beach ... The thrill of her novels is in the dive to places unknown." - Alexandra Wolfe, Wall Street Journal, Advanced Praise for Manhattan Beach: "Egan's propulsive, surprising, ravishing, and revelatory saga, a covertly profound page-turner that will transport and transform every reader, casts us all as divers in the deep, searching for answers, hope, and ascension.", Pitch perfect... Darkly, ripplingly funny... Egan possesses a satirist's eye and a romance novelist's heart., After stretching the boundaries of fiction in myriad ways...Egan does perhaps the only thing left that could surprise: she writes a thoroughly traditional novel. Realistically detailed, poetically charged, and utterly satisfying: apparently there's nothing Egan can't do., "A bounteous miracle that makes you feel that past time, and our time, differently; everything becomes freshly energized, infused with humanity, vital, sad, and full of importance. To see the world through Egan's eyes is to be moved, through language, to new adoration of the world. I don't know a better writer working today. There is a generosity in her prose that is vastly enlivening to its reader and brings about that beautiful effect fiction sometimes causes: more, and better-grounded, fondness for reality, just as it is."-- George Saunders, "Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan makes her maiden deep dive into historical fiction with the vivid Manhattan Beach." --Vanity Fair, "Intricately patterned and visionary . . . . Manhattan Beach . . . plunges into the past to discover what lies beneath the surface of our own world." --The Atlantic, "Rich, brilliant, capacious . . . Egan has every gift a writer can possess . . . . Moving, mournful, and often profound." --USA Today, "[Egan has a] talent for dazzling, specific descriptions that animate each chapter, and dialogue that rings true to her memorable characters and their era." - Eileen Weiner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "Egan's most remarkable accomplishment yet. . . . 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." - Priscilla Gilman, The Boston Globe, "Jennifer Egan does everything right as a novelist, with vivid characters and surprising enough plot twists... but she pushes all her work some notches higher with her evocation of what it feels like to be the first woman to experience the previously forbidden world of undersea divers." - Buffalo News, Advance Praise for Manhattan Beach: "Egan's propulsive, surprising, ravishing, and revelatory saga, a covertly profound page-turner that will transport and transform every reader, casts us all as divers in the deep, searching for answers, hope, and ascension." -- Booklist (starred review), "The novel's crooked politicians, organized-crime bosses, and shady cops make it read like a fast-paced, hard-boiled drama." --Marie Claire, "Manhattan Beach" is an old-fashioned page-turner that more than delivers on the foreboding promise of its 'T reasure Island' -like opening set piece. The book is a Whitmanesque mosaic that truly does 'embrace multitudes.'" -Brooklyn Daily Eagle, "...dares to satisfy us in a way that stories of an earlier age used to." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post, "Manhattan Beach is... beautifully written throughout... But for an author who won literature's highest accolade for a book based on its uniqueness, it's perhaps even more impressive that she can also write a fantastic novel that is, at least on the surface, as classic as they come." -GQ, "A bounteous miracle that makes you feel that past time, and our time, differently; everything becomes freshly energized, infused with humanity, vital, sad, and full of importance. To see the world through Egan's eyes is to be moved, through language, to new adoration of the world. I don't know a better writer working today. There is a generosity in her prose that is vastly enlivening to its reader and brings about that beautiful effect fiction sometimes causes: more, and better-grounded, fondness for reality, just as it is."-- George Saunders, bestselling author of Tenth of December and Lincoln in the Bardo, "While it's obvious that Egan meticulously researched the era's history, the novel's crooked politicians, organized-crime bosses, and shady cops make it read like a fast-paced, hard-boiled drama." --Marie Claire, "Egan's first foray into historical fiction makes you forget you're reading historical fiction at all." -- Elle, "Genuinely affecting and handsomely constructed. It moves for all the right reasons." - The Independent UK, " Manhattan Beach is so rich in detail and atmosphere; such an exploration of underworlds of all kinds, filled with lessons on lifelines and buoyancy and how to bear life's weight by diving deep into it. Jennifer Egan has masterfully conjured an era we are on the cusp of losing. Her novel is an absorbing story, beautifully written. Its strands of subtle intrigue and quiet heroism make you reluctant to leave each page while eager to get to the next." -- M.L. Stedman, "Excellent . . . . Manhattan Beach is a fleet, sinuous epic, abounding with evocative details and felicitous metaphors . . . . [it] magnificently captures the country on the brink of triumph and triumphalism." -- Bookforum, Tremendously assured and rich, moving from depictions of violence and crime to deep tenderness. The book's emotional power once again demonstrates Egan's extraordinary gifts., "Groundbreaking... Features characters about whom you come to care deeply as you watch them doing things they shouldn't, acting gloriously, infuriatingly human." , "What Jennifer Egan gives us in Manhattan Beach . . . is good, old-fashioned writing--or old-fashioned good writing, which is something else again." - Ellen Akins, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, "Egan's most remarkable accomplishment yet. . . . 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, "A novel that deserves to join the canon of New York stories." -- Amor Towles, New York Times Book Review, Praise for Jennifer Egan: "Jennifer Egan may well be the best living American novelist." --Joe Klein, Time, "Pitch perfect... Darkly, ripplingly funny... Egan possesses a satirist's eye and a romance novelist's heart." , "This truly fine novel, so rich in period and emotional atmosphere and so cunningly plotted, is a joy -- one of the standouts of the year." -- Newsday, ""This large, ambitious novel shows Egan at the top of her game. Anna is a true feminist heroine, and her grit and tenacity will make readers root for her." -- Library Journal (starred review), "A story of Dickensian ambition that benefits mightily from [Egan's] meticulous attention to detail and her rich, evocative language." --St. Louis Post-Dispatch
