I couldn't help but compare this in my mind with Egan's previous novel, the highly original A Visit From the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011. In other places, though, the evidence of her historical research is too obvious, with brand names, slang, and war developments peppered in so thickly that they don't suggest the time period so much as shove it down your throat. Egan clearly did a mountain of research to be able to describe Anna's dives convincingly – she mentions in the acknowledgments that she first started researching this book in 2004. It's fascinating to read about the reality of diving in the 1940s, starting with putting on the extremely heavy metal suit. Against the odds, she eventually becomes the only female diver. Meanwhile, Anna is fixated on the idea of becoming one of the divers undertaking underwater repairs on ships in the Naval Yard. This rekindled relationship will be crucial.

One night Anna sees Dexter Styles at his Moonshine club and goes up to speak to him, but for some reason can't bring herself mention their shared history so gives him a fake name. Anna still finds time for some fun, though: a new friend, Nell, who's seeing a married man, introduces her to smoking and nightclubs. Most of the girls are married with husbands overseas, but Anna still lives at home with her mother and Lydia, who needs constant care. This is one tough girl, and she'll certainly need that fortitude when her father disappears a few years later.Īfter a brief Part One, Part Two picks up with Anna, aged 19, contributing to the war effort by working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. She also impresses Mr Styles with her stoic response to the cold of the ocean in late December when she dips her toes into it. This first introduction to Anna conveys some important details about her: like her father, she is deprived but desperate not to show it, so she stubbornly refuses to take home the posh doll the Styles children's nanny offers her out of pity. Especially with the prejudice that still surrounds hiring the Irish, Eddie knows he can't be too picky about the type of work he accepts, especially if he is ever to afford a $380 wheelchair for his younger daughter, Lydia, who is severely mentally and physically handicapped. We get the sense that Eddie would only consider working for Styles because he's desperate: it's the 1930s, not many years after the Kerrigans lost most of their money in the stock market crash. This is a secret meeting because Styles, a nightclub owner, is a known gangster.

Jennifer Egan's first work of historical fiction opens with eleven-year-old Anna Kerrigan accompanying her father, Eddie, on a visit to Dexter Styles' home near Manhattan Beach.

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