What was it like to live during the Great Depression or during the formation of the Constitution?The Ladies Who Brunch discussed Manhattan Beach, by Jennifer Egan. The book opens during the Great Depression, a time where the world would no longer be the same. Food, clothing, and shelter were scarce – not to mention jobs. Gangs, crime, and drug abuse were also at an all-time high; it was every man for himself. The two main themes in the novel are a transformational shift from the norm and self-reflection.
As World War 2 breaks out, the main character, Anna Kerrigan, struggles with her father’s disappearance years earlier. With this mystery looming in the back of her head, Anna strives to be someone and to break norms. Through her own testing of boundaries, she has a revelation of some of the time during the years of her youth before her father disappeared, time that she had lost.
To become someone, Anna takes a job at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where women were just beginning to be allowed to hold jobs that had always belonged to the men. Clichés, like “men can do more than women,” roared through every female alive during this time. However, Anna overcame the norm to become the first female diver; her experience repairing ship equipment helped America win the war.
Quiet time was invented for the sole purpose of reflecting on one’s life and choices. Other characters in the novel, like Dexter, Eddie, and Nell, encounter either the afterlife or a sense of self proclamation. They all come to the realization that delving into the underbelly of nightlife or disappearing without closure to those around them is not right, when before they hadn’t realized the effect it had on others. Even Anna had to be abandoned by her family to make the space for her to become her own person.
In a work of fiction, one expects to read about characters who can both do the impossible and relate to the reader. This novel, while fiction, still has an historical element to show that not everything back then was the “white picket fence dream,” but rather, the norm for anyone who wanted to be someone was hard work and dedication.
The next novel and lively discussion of the Ladies Who Brunch will be At the Waters Edge, by Sara Gruen, happening on May 12, 2018.
Rachel Slaiman is a published freelance writer of several articles in both print and online as well an editor and copy editor of aspiring author’s manuscripts. She is currently the co-recording secretary for the WNBA and co-chair for the Brooklyn Book Festival. Rachel holds a B.A. in Communications and a M.S. from Pace University. In her spare time, she enjoys reading and writing short stories.
