Manhattan Beach by Jenifer Egan

Pulitzer prize winner Jennifer Egan is credited with employing original, stylized literary forms in her writing.  While this is significant and makes her writing stand out, in her latest novel, Manhattan Beach, the stream of consciousness and over packed story lines makes the book difficult and unnecessarily burdened with many plotlines that are not needed or helpful to the main themes. The list of the many story lines includes those involving gangsters, union workers, deep sea divers, undeveloped love interests, handicapped children, and disappearing parents.   The main characters, Anna, Stiles, Eddie, Dexter, and Charlie's trials were sometimes fully developed but often we are left with questions as to why the character said or did what they did. There were a good number of unexplained connections between characters also.  Was Anna in love with Stiles? Was she a good woman or was she somehow damaged? Did Eddie turn on Dexter because he had a change of heart about what was right and wrong?  All of this detracted from the important themes that Egan included.  The main story line of Anna fighting against the male dominated world was engaging because she managed to become an underwater diver working during the war repairing ships.  The number of female characters that "played the game" to survive or to avoid social  backlash was significant and demonstrated the plight that the women faced every day.  This theme alone was enough to build the story around, but Egan also included the rampant attitudes of racial inequality and aversion to physical handicaps showing the  painful results of these prejudices that seemed to be the norm during this time in our history.  Perhaps the most important theme for Egan is the almost existential idea of "time" that has its way with all of us.  We all may try to fight the good fight; we may struggle tirelessly to change our lives.  We may believe we can reconcile our lives but in the end we all sink slowly into the unknowable dark when we die.  "Time" is the looming hazard that we all face and that we all fail to concur.  This novel was gloomy and left the reader with a sense of futility.  Well written but dark.