The Spectator, 10/14/17
“…shares with Egan’s Pulitzer Prize-winning A Visit from the Goon Squad and an earlier novel, The Keep, a vivid apprehension of the provisionality of human life and the onus on fiction to dispose itself accordingly in the attempt to capture it.”
Sunday Telegraph, 10/15/17
“Elements of noirish thriller keep you turning the pages, only stopping occasionally to marvel at another pitch-perfect description. If Philip Roth had written Manhattan Beach, they would call it a masterpiece. And maybe it is, or close.”
Metro, 10/15/17
“It’s a restless, persistently searching novel whose pleasures are old fashioned but rich.”
TLS, 10/10/17
“…What the reading public needs right now, Manhattan Beach is enormously entertaining and satisfying: an escape, perhaps, but also a reminder.”
The Atlantic, 10/10/17
“Joy, purification, renewal, death—the sea is all of these things in Manhattan Beach, Jennifer Egan’s intricately patterned and visionary new novel… Egan’s novel suggests patterns and motivations that exist at a level far deeper than rationality.”
Slate, 10/10/17
“The novel is more deeply imagined than most historical fiction; Egan summons the material and social texture of 1940s New York, from the cosmetics to the food to the sounds and smells of street and apartment and merchant marine life, so completely that the world of the novel closes over its reader’s head like the waters of Wallabout Bay engulfing Anna on her first dive.”
Brisbane Times, 10/05/17
“The novel’s overarching theme, a preoccupation of Egan’s since the September 11, 2001, attacks, is “the trajectory of American power.'”
The National (U.K.), 10/03/17
“There is something satisfying in how straightforward her new book is. It is a novel to immerse yourself in.”
People Magazine, 10/16/17
“A lush historical novel packing the power of a riptide. Book of the Week.”
Time Magazine, 10/05/17
“Though the prose is exquisite, Egan never lets it get in the way of the story. In bouts of glamour, adventure and violence, she gives the narrative a cinematic feel, while grounding it in Anna’s realistic frustrations with society… Readers of today will find her story of daring and persistence deeply resonant.”
Daily Mail, 10/05/17
“Egan isn’t shy about sharing her research and a lesser book might have been capsized by its weight; here, the detail serves only to deepen and enrich. Mystery novels, thinks Anna, are unsatisfying in part because they take place ‘in a single realm’ only. The genius of this book is that Egan successfully plumbs so many.”
National Post, 10/04/17
“Manhattan Beach opens with a quote from Moby-Dick: “Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.” And like Melville’s great novel, which can teach you everything you may wish to know about 19th-century whaling and cetology, Manhattan Beach itself plumbs the inky depths of midcentury diving, detailing the exhaustion, the danger and the exhilaration in equal measure. Water is like a metronome keeping the beat in this time- and perspective-shifting novel.”
New York Times, 10/03/17
The Irish Times, 10/07/17
“To find a compelling story well told, one that is full of complex characters and sentences so luminous they stop you in your tracks, is one of literature’s greatest pleasures. That pleasure is bestowed liberally by Jennifer Egan in Manhattan Beach.”
Bookseller (U.K.)
“One of the most dazzling novelists writing today.”
Sunday Business Post (U.K.)
“Egan is a remarkable author, and this book is one of the most anticipated this year.”
Stylist (U.K.), 08/25/17
“2017’s Most Anticipated Book’ ‘… it‘s one that will suck you into its orbit and remind you just why it is you love reading. It seems there’s little Egan can’t turn her hand to.”
Woman & Home (U.K.)
“Thoroughly realized characters, an involving plot – a triumphant achievement.”
Tatler (U.K.)
“Rich in historical detail, full of seductive characters and teeming with human incident, Manhattan Beach proves once again what a gifted storyteller Egan is … Manhattan Beach is an enthralling mystery tale.”
Daily Mail (U.K.), 10/23/17
“Egan’s first foray into historical fiction, this is a more conventional book than her fans might expect, but it’s as darkly immersive an experience as Anna’s dives.”
Grazia, 10/02/17
“Organized crime, the class system and a transformative moment in history are skillfully rolled up in this masterful novel.”
Refinery 29, 08/01/17
“A literary thriller with noir verve that takes you back to an era when men went off to war and women went to work.”
Vogue, 10/03/17
“What to read this Autumn”
KMUW, 10/2/17
“If you need to love a character to love the book, don’t hesitate to dive headfirst into Manhattan Beach by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jennifer Egan. Egan’s protagonist is tender, ambitious, confused, loving, brave and determined. If you need to love sentence after well crafted sentence you can surf endlessly on the fluid language of Manhattan Beach. If you need a page turning plot you will sail the gale winds of Manhattan Beach. Jennifer Egan is an artist of the highest form.”
USA Today, 10/2/17
“Egan has every gift a writer can possess, and like all of her work Manhattan Beach is radiant with intelligence, special simply because it’s by her.”