Manhattan Beach

Eddie is descended from Irish immigrants and grew up in the New York Catholic Protectory after his mother died of typhus when he was only four years old. At the Protectory, he made friends with people like Dunellen, who were of similar heritage. He distinguished himself by being “the one […] whom they could never quite figure” (46), and his inscrutability and discretion remain defining character traits throughout his life.

Eddie is as hardy and adaptable as Anna, especially when it comes to survival and money. Although Eddie became relatively wealthy as a stockbroker, he lost everything in the aftermath of the crash. He ended up as Dunellen’s “union lackey in pinstripes” (48), borrowing the car he once owned to run others’ errands before getting involved with Dexter and, by extension, Mr. Q. Mindful of appearances and of his history as an impoverished orphan, Eddie dresses well; Agnes tailors his suits and saves exotic feathers to trim his hats. 

Restless, Eddie cannot settle into a contented existence with his family; he seeks adventure and promotion. He eventually feels that this restlessness has cost him too dear, when his beloved Anna grows up and turns away from him. Yet Eddie’s biggest internal obstacle is his inability to fully love and accept his disabled daughter, Lydia; the “guilt,” “rage and self-loathing” leaves him numb and spent” (19). Unable to tolerate Lydia’s predicament while simultaneously feeling responsible for her, Eddie experiences a rupture with his wife, Agnes. After leaving the family and taking a job on a ship, he finds himself starving in a lifeboat, unable to move. At that moment, he finally understands Lydia and responds to her as a father should.

Born of a Polish mother and a restauranteur father of unspecified, but likely Catholic descent, Dexter changes his tongue-twister of a name and strives for a life of greatness. He becomes a bootlegger for Frankie Q., the man who defines Dexter’s business ventures for the rest of Dexter’s life. While Dexter’s ingenuity, suave social manner, and good looks earn him the hand of the wealthy Harriet Berringer and the nominal acceptance of her family, he periodically feels like an outcast amongst them, as they treat him with a “weary revile” and never truly have his back.

Dexter’s power, both professional and social, comes from keeping people on his side. As soon as he or they transgress, his power is threatened. One such transgressor was Eddie Kerrigan, whom Mr. Q. describes as Dexter’s one “misjudgment.” Dexter finds himself outplayed and trapped when his father-in-law refuses to provide an alternative to working for Mr. Q.; Harriet is also indifferent to his infidelity and likely engaged in one of her own. Dexter yearns for a “channel” between Mr. Q., his mafioso boss, and his established father-in-law, Arthur Berringer. He finds that this channel has existed for years when Berringer and Mr. Q. decide to have him killed; the final death blow comes from his former subordinate, Badger, who shoots Dexter in the back.

A favorite with women, Dexter is tall and good-looking with “an alertness about him, a humming tension […] he seem[s] to await something to be amused by” (9). He has a strong physical presence and an urgent libido. His encounter with Anna enables her to express her long-repressed sexuality and leads to the creation of baby Leon, who threatens to undo her. Nevertheless, Dexter has a tender side, which shows in his sensitivity to his daughter Tabatha’s feelings and his sense of duty toward Anna and Lydia, when he accompanies them to the beach.

Anna’s younger sister, Lydia Kerrigan cannot sit up, walk, or talk intelligibly. Her “hair […] golden, soft with curls, fragrant with the exorbitant shampoo Agnes insisted on buying for her” and “skin velvety as an infant’s” are poignant reminders of how beautiful she might have been “had she not been damaged” (18). While Lydia grows increasingly lethargic, she revives for a short spell, when Dexter and Anna take her to the sea and she recognizes something of herself and her own irregular speech in the waves.

The other characters’ attitudes to Lydia illustrate their capacity for compassion and their tolerance of difficult realities. While Agnes and Anna respond in practical, affectionate ways, Eddie finds that their devotion to Lydia puzzling because “Lydia g[ives] so little in return” (18). He struggles to accept why he, a man of little means, should have an unhealthy child. He doesn’t know what to make of her until his near-death experience at sea, when he understands the experience of having consciousness in a weak body. 

Agnes grew up on a Minnesota farm and became a Follies dancer. After the birth of her daughter Lydia, she changed her vocation from entertainer to nurse. Like Anna, she finds meaning in vocation; her vocation remains with her even after Lydia’s death, when she travels to Europe to become a nurse with the Red Cross. Physically, Agnes is beautiful; as a 23-year-old, Anna judges “her own mother prettier than every woman she encountered” (4). Agnes’s sensitivity to appearances is her way of aesthetically smoothing over her family’s Depression-era hardship, as seen in her scrupulousness over Ed’s outfits and Lydia’s hair.

A rebel at heart, with a capacity for shocking her family, Agnes has high physical energy. She escapes her family twice: at 17, when she becomes a dancer, and as an adult, when she joins the Red Cross in Europe. Although independent and resourceful, Agnes initially struggles to accept Anna’s “masculine” wish for autonomy and worldliness. Agnes holds ambiguous attitudes toward woman’s emancipation. She acknowledges that women can make their own living, but she also finds a place for traditional femininity.

Agnes, who loves Lydia more than anyone, is heartbroken by her husband’s reaction to their youngest daughter. When he abandons them and does not return for the funeral, she finally changes the locks, showing that she has locked him out of her heart.

Eddie’s half-sister Brianne danced in the Follies with Agnes and then relied upon funding from her beaux and her brother for subsistence. Once a beauty, Brianne now has “bags under her eyes and a boozy roll at the waist” (21). While Brianne seems the archetypal alcoholic “aging tart,” she becomes both Eddie and Anna’s confidante. She helps Eddie distribute his funds to his family while he is at sea—without disclosing his whereabouts—and she assists Anna with a respectable transition into unwed motherhood.

Brianne is a devoted and affectionate caregiver to Baby Leon and claims that her maternal instincts were merely wasted “on rats and louts more babyish than this one” (488). Through Brianne’s transformation, Egan shows that no reputation in her novel is fixed; whereas patriarchy would categorize women as either mothers or tarts, Egan shows that these roles are fluid and interchangeable.

Mrs. Dexter Styles, née Harriet Berringer, was born to a wealthy WASP family. With auburn hair, “a movie star’s sculpted eyebrows and a long mouth painted glossy red” and a wardrobe of the latest fashions (4), Harriet is the ultimate, well-bred foil to her husband’s activities. Despite being brought up as a debutante, Harriet had already lost her virginity when Dexter met her at 16. She was pregnant with his child when he asked her father for Harriet’s hand in marriage.

Although she has a healthy sexual appetite and looks out for her children’s well-being, Harriet is fickle and unemotional. She easily transfers her affections from her husband to her former beau, Booth, when the former loses his edge in business. Arguably, Harriet functions as a cipher of Lady Luck: Dexter’s loss of her favor foreshadows his loss of reputation—and eventually, his life. She collaborates with Dexter in good times and throws him off to be murdered by goons when he is down. 

Dexter and Harriet’s eldest daughter, Tabatha, nicknamed “Tabby,” has inherited her mother’s auburn hair and “showy beauty.” She grows up spoiled and sheltered; as a teenager, she is vain about her good looks, obsessed with movie stars, and in love with her cousin Grady. Tabatha serves as a counter to Anna in both temperament and in her perception of femininity. Her frivolity contrasts with Anna’s sense of responsibility and purpose; her merriment opposes Anna’s intensity.

Dexter is upset by Tabatha’s growing up and away from him. He is disturbed by how easily she transfers her affection and her desire to impress from him to other men—superficially Mackey, whom she entreats to run barefoot on the beach with her, and Grady, whom she worships with devotion. Dexter’s tenderness toward Tabatha, however, especially when she grieves Grady’s departure, shows the fatherly instinct beneath his gangster exterior: “He felt the likeness of their flesh, their common smell, their way of moving” (327).

Lieutenant Axel is “a petite barrel-chested man in naval uniform, his face both weather-beaten and strangely boyish, with no suggestion of a beard” (160). Anna’s boss and diving trainer, his journey serves as a paradigm for society’s shifting attitudes toward both women and minorities. He judges Anna’s ambition to be a diver as both a waste of time and a threat to the masculinity of the profession. Although he taunts her throughout her test, she sizes him up and resolves to find his “weakness” as though he is the knot she has to untie.

Lieutenant Axel’s attitude changes as he witnesses Anna’s consistent competence; she performs better than his other divers. Faced with the evidence of her superiority, as well as that of Marle, an African-American diver whom he lauds as “my best welder” (477), Lieutenant Axel begins to overcome prejudice. Exemplifying his change of heart, he writes Anna a glowing recommendation for Mare Island, an act emblematic of both his shifting attitudes and those of society at large. 

Anna’s boss at the part-measuring factory, Mr. Voss, initially seems a stern man who wants to keep Anna’s curiosity in check. When Anna becomes the best worker he has ever had, he grows to respect and favor her, so much so that his other female workers suspect that they are having an affair. The professional nature of their working relationship and friendship, despite the heavy-handed flirtation on the day that Voss takes her to Moonshine’s Nightclub, is so modern that both Anna’s coworkers and Nell suspect it has a salacious undertone.

Mr. Voss’s female workers speculate about his marital status; they cannot be certain whether they have seen him wearing a ring or not. When Anna learns that he has neither wife nor child, she suspects that there is a possibility that he could be a closeted homosexual. If her suspicions are correct, Mr. Voss’s hold on power comes from his ability to hide his true self in a homophobic society that would not accept him.