Manhattan Beach
Page 43
Ahhh Ohhhh
Ahhh Ohhhh
The ships were calling to avoid each other, but it always sounded to Anna as if they were lost, seeking companionship in the depthless white. The sound stirred in her a foreboding she couldn’t explain. At night, wakened by the foghorns, she reached inside the basket where Leon slept, searching for the rampant patter of his heartbeat.
“Look,” her father said. “Here it comes.”
She was surprised to find him watching the fog. It rolled in fast: a wild, volatile silhouette against the phosphorescent sky. It reared up over the land like a tidal wave about to break, or the aftermath of a silent, distant explosion.
Without thinking, she took her father’s hand.
“Here it comes,” she said.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
* * *
I was heartened, during the years I spent circling Manhattan Beach, to know that if nothing more came of the endeavor than the pleasure of having researched it, I would count myself lucky. The good times began in 2004 at the New York Public Library, where I was a Fellow at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, led by Jean Strouse. There, librarians Rob Scott and Maira Liriano helped familiarize me with the historical dominance of New York City’s waterfront—a feature of the landscape that had mostly escaped me in many years of living here.
At the Brooklyn Historical Society, I stumbled upon a rich wartime correspondence between Alfred Kolkin and Lucille Gewirtz Kolkin, who met while working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. In 2008 I had the opportunity to accompany ninety-year-old Alfred Kolkin back to the Yard along with his daughters, Judy Kaplan and Marjorie Kolkin.
At the Brooklyn Navy Yard, I was embraced and encouraged by Andrew Kimball, Eliot Matz, Aileen Chumard, and the extraordinary Daniella Romano, a guardian angel of this project. We collaborated with the Brooklyn Historical Society on an oral history of the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Under the expert tutelage of oral historian Sady Sullivan, I was able to assist in interviewing a number of our subjects: Ellen Bulzone, Don Condrill, Lucille Ford, Mary and Anne Hannigan, Pearl Hill, Sylvia Honigman, Alfred Kolkin, Helen Kuhner, Sidonia Levine, Audrey Lyon, Antoinette Mauro, Giovanna Mercogliano, Robert Morgenthau, Ida Pollack, Charles Rockoff, and Rubena Ross. I’ve incorporated details from some of their stories into Manhattan Beach. I also benefited from Andrew Gustafson’s Navy Yard tours (and subsequent help) through BLDG 92, the exhibition and visitor center of the Navy Yard, whose advisory board I had the honor to serve on. Bonnie Sauer at the National Archives gave me physical access to the collection “Photographs of the Construction and Repair of Buildings, Facilities and Vessels at the New York Navy Yard (1903–1945).”
My awareness of the link between ship repair and deep-sea diving began with an article by Robert Alan Hay, a civilian World War II diver at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Two more guardian angels, MSG MDV Stephen J. Heimbach and James P. Leville (Frenchy), Sergeant Major, retired, dressed me in a two-hundred-pound Mark V diving dress at a reunion of the United States Army Diver’s Association, where I was fortunate to be their guest in 2009. I’m obliged to World War II Army divers James D. Kennedy and Bill Watts for sharing their stories; some details of Mr. Kennedy’s remarkable history appear in this book. My several talks with the first female U.S. Army deep-sea diver, 1SG Andrea Motley Crabtree, U.S. Army retired, were essential to my understanding of the challenges of being a female diver. Gina Bardi, Diane Cooper, and Kirsten Kvam at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park gave me access to rare technical diving books and a trove of historical diving artifacts. Staten Island diver Edward Fanuzzi shared a few of his harbor secrets.
The wartime experiences of merchant mariners caught my attention via two narratives, Herman Rosen’s Gallant Ship, Brave Men and Harold J. McCormick (USNR)’s Two Years Behind the Mast: An American Landlubber at Sea in World War II, both of which inform Manhattan Beach directly. Repeated visits (and one short voyage) on the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, an operational Liberty ship and museum in San Francisco, introduced me to a group of World War II veteran mariners whose memories and knowledge were crucial to this effort: Radio Operator Angelo Demattei, Deck Officer James Rich, Engineering Officer Norm Schoenstein, and Naval Armed Guard S1c John Stokes. In New York, I relied heavily upon Joshua Smith, interim director of the American Merchant Marine Museum at Kings Point, for reading lists and fact-checking.
For additional waterfront knowledge, I’m indebted to Joseph Meany’s excellent monograph on New York Harbor during World War II. Richard Cox, director of the Harbor Defense Museum at Fort Hamilton, provided a tour. The McAllister family of McAllister Towing & Transportation, whose tugboats have plied New York’s waters since 1864, was immensely generous—Brian McAllister with his World War II–era memories, and Buckley McAllister with present-day knowledge and harbor excursions.
For small-boat expertise and fact-checking, as well as numerous reading leads, I’m beholden to John Lipscomb. For naval fact-checking, I am grateful to Vice Admiral Dick Gallagher, USN retired. Economic historians Charles Geisst and Richard Sylla did their utmost to help me understand banking in New York during wartime. David Favaloro of the Tenement Museum provided an excellent tour and much knowledge. Alex Busansky shared legal advice.
I’m lucky to have been writing about a period that exists in living memory, and I vastly appreciate the longtime New Yorkers who shared their personal histories with me. The painter Alfred Leslie, with his crystalline recall, granted me several meetings. Also illuminating were Roger Angell, Don and Jane Cecil, Shirley Feuerstein, Joseph Salvatore Perri, and Judith Schlosser. Marianne Brown at the Condé Nast Archive provided access to a wealth of periodicals from the war years.
A bibliography would be tranquilizing, but a few books were critical. Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster, by T. J. English, and On the Irish Waterfront: The Crusader, the Movie, and the Soul of the Port of New York, by James T. Fisher, were both pivotal to my portrayal of Eddie Kerrigan’s waterfront. John R. Stillgoe’s Lifeboat is a deeply original meditation on small-boat survival. The Center for Fiction provided a reading list of early-twentieth-century fiction set in New York City.
A series of smart and resourceful people helped me with my research. Sara Martinovich worked with me while a student at DePauw University. Peter Carey at the Hunter College MFA program bestowed three Hertog Fellows upon me, beginning in 2005: Jeffrey Rotter, Jesse Barron, and Sean Hammer, all fiction writers in their own rights. Meredith Wisner, professional researcher extraordinaire, provided exhaustive period knowledge.
The Corporation of Yaddo granted me a vital last-minute residency.
I would be nowhere without my readers: Monica Adler, Ruth Danon, Genevieve Field, Lisa Fugard, David Herskovits, Don Lee, Melissa Maxwell, David Rosenstock, and Elizabeth Tippens. Their insights and queries made the book immeasurably better.
My agent, Amanda Urban, is a true partner. She and her team at ICM and at Curtis Brown—Daisy Meyrick, Amelia Atlas, Ron Bernstein, Felicity Blunt, and many others—are the best of the best. My editor, Nan Graham, put enormous passion and hard work into this manuscript.
Thanks to my mother and stepfather, Kay and Sandy Walker, for their love.
Thanks to my husband, David Herskovits (again and always), and to our sons, Manu and Raoul, for making my real life so much fun.
Finally, I’m grateful to my brother, Graham Kimpton, 1969–2016, who taught me the necessity of “gunpowder” in any work of art, and whose wisdom and love reverberate through me every day.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
* * *
© PIETER M. VAN HATTEM
JENNIFER EGAN is the author of five previous books of fiction: A Visit from the Goon Squad, which won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award; The Keep; the story collection Emerald City; Look at Me, a National Book Award finalist; and The Invisible Circus. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, Granta, McSweeney’s, and The New York T
imes Magazine. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two sons.
MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT
SimonandSchuster.com
Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Jennifer-Egan
ALSO BY JENNIFER EGAN
The Invisible Circus
Emerald City and Other Stories
Look at Me
The Keep
A Visit from the Goon Squad
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
* * *
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Scribner
An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Jennifer Egan
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Scribner Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Scribner hardcover edition October 2017
SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Jill Putorti
Jacket design by John Gall
Jacket art by Heli Hiltunen
Endpaper map courtesy of BNYDC Archives, SC/1, Brooklyn Navy Yard Architectural Plans, Maps, and Drawings collection.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Egan, Jennifer, author.
Title: Manhattan Beach : a novel / Jennifer Egan.
Description: First Scribner hardcover edition. | New York : Scribner, 2017.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017029043 | ISBN 9781476716732 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Young women—New York (State)—New York—Fiction. | World War, 1939–1945—United States—Fiction. | Domestic fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / General. | GSAFD: Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3555.G292 M36 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017029043
ISBN 978-1-4767-1673-2
ISBN 978-1-4767-1675-6 (ebook)