Manhattan Beach and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

Greetings. We had nice weather for our annual May long weekend bicycle trip in the mountains. We survived and happily no one on the organized ride (of about 300 cyclists) got hurt that we heard about, although it was a bit uncomfortable at certain narrow points riding along the shoulder of the road with cars and trucks whizzing past, but unfortunately that’s par for the course with sharing the road.

The mountain peaks were pretty spectacular as you can see from the photos and we saw a moose and two mountain goats along the way, which I did not have my camera ready for. Apparently we had just missed seeing a mama bear and her two cubs by the side of the road eating dandelions.

It feels like summer is here now with the long weekend behind us, although that won’t officially happen for several more weeks. Still the temps have hit the 70s and 80s, and I have planted my annual crop of tomato and cucumber plants — woo-hoo — as well as petunias and geraniums. For those in the States, I wish everyone a very happy and long Memorial Day weekend. Wherever you are, enjoy your reading.

In book news — there’s been two literary icons who’ve passed away recently  First Tom Wolfe and now Philip Roth. It seems sad to lose such giants.  The New York Times’s obituary hailed Roth as a “towering novelist who explored lust, Jewish life, and America.”  Many viewed him as America’s greatest living writer, he was 85. And Wolfe, who died a couple weeks ago at 88, was known for turning journalism into enduring lit and for his satire.  I remember reading Wolfe’s “The Bonfire of the Vanities” from 1987 and “The Right Stuff” from 1979.

Yet despite the lengthy career of Roth’s, I somehow missed reading his novels, which I hope to rectify later this year. In honor of Roth’s and Wolfe’s works, I’ll go ahead and plan to read one book from each author in 2018, and perhaps I’ll throw in an Ursula Le Guin novel as well — as the renown sci-fi / fantasy author passed away in January. Which are your favorites from these authors that you’d recommend? Hmm. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a couple of reviews of what I finished lately.

Oh yes, I knew I’d eventually get to Jennifer Egan’s 2017 historical novel “Manhattan Beach,” which many critics hailed and many bloggers disdained. What gives? I had to find out.  I listened to it as an audiobook which took me a couple weeks and many miles of walking  to complete as it is quite long and epic but well narrated. I was coming into it as a newbie to Egan’s fiction, so I didn’t have any preconceived ideas about any of her prior novels such as her prize-winning tale “A Visit From the Goon Squad,” which might have worked in my favor — as this one is much more traditional in its scope and apparently a world apart from that one.

Early on, I was able to get into the story that takes place in NYC in the 1930s and 40s … about a family — 11-year-old Anna and her disabled sister, Lydia, and her mother, and father, Eddie, who comes to work for nightclub owner and mobster Dexter Styles, whom he takes Anna to meet as a child. But then Eddie vanishes from their lives, leaving Anna and her mother to scrape by to make ends meet while taking care of Lydia.

Fast forward years later, and Anna, now 19, is working at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, where eventually she becomes the first female diver repairing U.S. ships for the war effort — when she meets up with Dexter Styles again, which leads to an intriguing rendezvous as she tries to figure out what happened to her father.

The narratives of Anna, her father Eddie, and club owner Dexter Styles alternate throughout the novel and make for a fairly interesting ride into their intertwined and multi-faceted lives. There’s some rich historical detail amid the story and some enticing storytelling that conjure up quite well the underworld dealings, dock life, nightclubs, gender roles and attire of the era and feel of New York around the time of WWII.  I especially found the part of Anna and Dexter taking disabled Lydia to the beach in his car — as well as the scene with Anna and Dexter making a dive with full gear on to the bottom of the bay quite vivid.

All in all many images from “Manhattan Beach” stayed with me and I liked its redemptive themes, many water scenes, and Anna’s perseverance. My only problem with the story was that it was quite drawn out and slow in places where I felt it didn’t need to be. I wanted to cut about 75 pages out of it — to speed it up a bit. I wasn’t a big fan of Eddie’s narrative parts but wished Dexter Styles had had a longer role or more narrative.  I also felt when I got to the end it felt a bit anticlimactic to me — a lot does happen but perhaps it was just how it all came together. So while I liked it quite a bit, I did have a few caveats about it.

Next up I finished Michelle McNamara’s nonfiction book “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer,” which seems to be a big bestseller this year and was completed by the author’s husband and various editors and writers after the author died tragically before she could finish all of the book’s manuscript. Still the majority of it seemed written by the time she passed away in 2016 at the age of 46.

It’s obvious by the book that the author put years of her life into trying to help catch this serial killer whose reign lasted from about 1976 to 1986 and whose brutality was simply diabolical (he’s suspected of murdering at least 12 and raping 45, along with committing 150 house break-ins). The book recounts the attacks, the locations, the detectives working the case, the victims, the profile of the killer, and even the author’s own background. Half memoir and half true crime story, “I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” has a no nonsense style about it that I found pretty refreshing and appealing even to readers like me who generally don’t read true crime.

I listened to it as an audiobook and was pretty drawn in by the narrative though it creeped me out and increasingly enraged me as the schmuck continued to get away with his crazy and blatant attacks, scouting out homes and people an even calling one victim 24 years later asking her in his same icky voice: “do you remember when we played?”  I’d like to think the police would be able to solve the case much sooner these days — back then DNA gathering, forensics, technology and crime databases were just in their infancy stages and it seemed harder to put it all together to locate the perpetrator.  Thank goodness the Ted Bundys and Green River Killers of the world — and now this psycho dude — are finally being apprehended.

“I’ll Be Gone in the Dark” had come off the library wait list for me after the Golden State Killer had finally been caught in April 2018 — but I wanted to see how much was known about him during all those years that the police and FBI were trying to catch him. Would it match the schmuck they caught?  Some of the things that seemed to stump them as mentioned in the book were the geographic locations of the attacks:  why the killer had spread out from Northern California to Southern California; and why had his rapes later turned increasingly more violent – into murders; and then why had the killer stopped his attacks and disappeared in 1986. No one really knows but perhaps these things will be answered now that he’s been caught.

 After completing her book, I so wished that Michelle McNamara had been around for his capture; she was clearly obsessed with having the case solved, endlessly researching and investigating even the smallest tidbits and staying in touch with detectives on the case. She missed seeing his arrest by two years, but clearly her focus on the case helped keep it alive and going … and she favored snagging him from some relative being in a DNA database, which they ended up doing, so she was right in that regard.

I wouldn’t say it scared me to listen to the audiobook when I was at home alone, but there was one time that I was walking my dog at dawn with my headphones on in a rural area going up a hill and I bent down to pick up her ball and when I stood back up there was a scraggily man right behind my ear who vaporized out of nowhere that made me jump. Gracious. Are you crazy?!  It turned out he was just passing going uphill, but I realized the accumulation of all the attacks in the book had sort of gotten into my head.

If there’s a couple caveats I have with the book it’s that it gets a bit repetitive after a while about the profile of the killer and the things he’d do.  He was thought to be 5’9 or 5’10 and have sandy blond hair and tie up his victims and do such and such and such.  The book also jumps around quite a bit chronologically so I felt it to be a bit confusing in that regard and it also feels a bit unfinished since the author passed away before it was fully done. Still while I don’t plan to continue with true crime books, I thought McNamara’s narrative was thought-provoking and satiated my curiosity of the case.

I lived in Orange County California in the summer of 1987 after college not far from where the Golden State Killer murdered his last victim in Irvine in 1986. I don’t recall hearing much about him at the time, but I do remember another serial killer around there then — the Night Stalker (Richard Ramirez). Sigh, yuck!

How about you — have you read either of these books and if so, what did you think?

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18 Responses to Manhattan Beach and I’ll Be Gone in the Dark

  1. Ti says:

    I liked Manhattan Beach but felt that her condition would have made her career choice pretty impossible, especially given the equipment available to her at the time. That was my only beef. I didn’t notice slow parts but I read it in print so maybe they weren’t as obvious.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Glad you liked it Ti. Interesting observations. When you say condition do you mean her pregnancy? I thought the stretch of her as a woman diver at the naval yard made it quite interesting … though unlikely at the time. It made Anna more appealing I guess and the story seemed to talk to the gender roles a bit.

  2. Carmen says:

    I wasn’t interested in Manhattan Beach when it was released but you make it sound like maybe I should read it (caveats and all). This is the second review that I’ve read of I’ll Be Gone in the Dark. I tell you, it sounds terrifying but I’m digging it. 😉 The thing is, I don’t think I would sleep well at night while reading this. Your anecdote about the scraggly guy on the hill trail gave me the chills. 😉 I would have run all the way home!!! 🙂 Great, balanced reviews, Susan.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Thanks Carmen. Yeah I’m a bit creeped out since I’ll be Gone in the Dark. I think I will try to forget some of it for sure. I heard a lot of bad things about Manhattan Beach beforehand from various blogs but I enjoyed the storytelling of it for the most part — and found it easy to follow despite the 3 narratives. It was like a slice of time during the war down on the docks of NYC.

  3. I agree that I’ll Be Gone in the Dark felt unfinished. Having said that, I was pretty excited when they arrested someone for the crimes and, like you, wished McNamara had lived to see it.

    I’ll have to give Manhattan Beach a try – it sounds like something I’d like.

    Another author passed away recently – Richard Peck.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Oh too bad. I didn’t hear about Richard Peck passing away. I don’t know his works but it sounds like I need to check out A Year Down Yonder & A Long Way from Chicago. Have you read him? Manhattan Beach seemed a good yarn of a story. & I agree I was really excited that they caught the Golden State Killer — by any means possible.

  4. Judy Krueger says:

    That picture of the mountain from your bicycle trip is stunning. We went to Michigan for five days and it rained almost everyday. Still, I had a wonderful time with my favorite sister. Then came home and the sun has shown for a total of about two hours in three days. I envy you your summery weather!
    Yes, authors are dying left and right. I had just started my reading of Philip Roth a year or so ago, so I have many books yet to explore. I’ve read quite a bit by Tom Wolfe. I always enjoy his crazy, wordy, irreverent books but my favorite is Bonfire.
    I was a big fan of Manhattan Beach on every page, but then I have loved every book by her. True crime is not really my thing. I am glad you enjoyed the McNamara book.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Hi Judy, glad you had fun in Michigan albeit with some clouds. I look forward to reading Roth and I would like to reread Wolfe’s Bonfire as the 80s seem quite long ago. For the most part I enjoyed Manhattan Beach & I look forward to what Egan does next. And I totally get that true crime isn’t for everyone — for good reason. I’m just glad he was caught.

  5. Brian Joseph says:

    We really have lost some brilliant authors lately. I am a big fan of Roth’s work. I would say that Portnoy’s Complaint is essential. I liked all the Zickerman books. I am obsessive about reading series in order. However, I agree with the consensus that American Pastoral is the best of the series and can be read as a stand-alone.

    I also love Ursula Le Guin. The best books that I read from her were The Dispossed and The Left Hand of Darkness. Many other novels written by her are so good.

    I have only read The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. I thought that it was extrodinary.

    It looks like you had a great bike ride. I am also glad that warm weather is here.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Thanks for the tips Brian on the three deceased authors. It sounds like you have read about all or many of Roth’s books! I have a habit of reading out of order which is terrible I know. I might pick up American Pastoral first or The Plot Against America. Gosh what would Roth write about in the Trump era? We need him now more than ever! Late spring feels great, doesn’t it?!

  6. I have I’ll Be Gone in the Dark on my list, and hope to get to it soon. I had passed Manhattan Beach by, because I hated Goon Squad. Yeah. But…I did love some of Egan’s other books, so maybe I’ll circle back to it.

    Thanks for sharing, and for visiting my blog. Have a great weekend!

    • Susan Wright says:

      Yeah this Egan novel is much more straightforward storytelling than her Goon Squad book, so you might give it a shot. I’ll be interested to hear what you think of the McNamara book. Thx Laurel enjoy your week!

  7. JaneGS says:

    Good review of Manhattan Beach–I agree that there are some weak parts to the novel, but overall I really liked it. The ending definitely was anticlimactic, but in a way, I think the world felt like that when WWII was finally over.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Hi Jane, good point about the ending. I’m glad you liked Manhattan Beach; I got caught up in it too.

  8. I really liked Michelle McNamara’s book a lot. I think you’re right, it feels unfinished in places, but not in a way that’s unsatisfying… more in a way that I wish she could have been around to finish. And I agree on the style — she’s very straight with the facts, but is good because the more melodramatic true crime really gets on my nerves.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Yeah you make good points. She cuts to the chase without the melodrama. It is tragic she couldn’t finish the book — as she put so much effort into it. I think it would have been even better with her around. Still it entails quite a scope of it all.

  9. CLM says:

    I have been listening to Manhattan Beach as well (in fact, it is due tomorrow so I had better bring it in from the car CD player and finish the last CD and a half) and I am finding it entertaining but not to die for. I like WWII settings and this is unusual but I don’t think I’d rush out for more of her books. I think she does the different points of view better than most, however.

    • Susan Wright says:

      Hi CLM: yeah the audiobook of Manhattan Beach seems to go on forever, ha. I agree the story & characters were good — but not to die for. Still it kept me interested & parts of it felt quite visual to me — I imagined the waterfront and diving quite well, though something about the ending felt sort of anticlimactic. I hope you got to finish it. Thanks for stopping by.

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