Why a Booktrail?
1940s: A tale of organized crime, the merchant marine and the clash of classes in New York
Manhattan Beach
What you need to know before your trail
Anna Kerrigan, nearly twelve years old, accompanies her father to the house of a certain Dexter Styles.. She soon realises that this man is crucial to the survival of her father and her family. She doesn’t know why yet, but her and her family’s fate is closely linked to that of Dexter and his money.
Years later, her father has disappeared and the country is at war. Anna works at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, and becomes the first female diver, the most dangerous and exclusive of occupations, repairing the ships that will help America win the war. She is the sole provider for her mother, a farm girl who had a brief and glamorous career as a Ziegfield folly, and her lovely, severely disabled sister. At a night club, she chances to meet Styles, the man she visited with her father before he vanished, and she begins to understand the complexity of her father’s life, and the reasons he might have been murdered.
It’s what happens next that will change her life forever
Travel Guide
Visit New York
Manhattan Beach
Where the opulent home of nightclub owner Dexter Styles, is located. This is a man with ties to the mob. In fact the mafia is one of two unknown forces in the story – the other being the dark, dangerous sea. Both can draw, suck, a person in, drowning them in danger and darkness
The Navel Yard
New York during this time was a strong and important port city. Its importance to the US war effort through the Brooklyn Naval Yard was vital as were the lesser known sea diving operations.
Anna is one of a female workforce employed in this Naval Yard, who measures and inspects the parts of battleships. What she really wants to do is become a diver, to inspect and repair vessels underwater
A woman working in a man’s role would have found it hard enough during these times, but doing a dangerous job during the war was to live under a constant cloud of threat, risk and more.
The American Dream is at stake here:
“I see the rise of this country to a height no country has occupied, ever….Not the Romans. Not the Carolingians, Not Genghis Khan or the Tatars or Napoleon’s France….How is that possible you ask. Because our dominance won’t arise from subjugating peoples. We’ll emerge from this war victorious and unscathed, and become bankers to the world. We’ll export our dreams, our language, our culture, our way of life. And it will prove irresistible”
Streetview Maps
A) NYC - The huge houses of Manhattan Beach
D) NYC - Brooklyn - The Naval Yard
Booktrail Boarding Pass: Manhattan Beach
Destination: New York City, Brooklyn Author/Guide: Jennifer Egan Departure Time: 1940s
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