Manhattan Beach

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan, 438 pages.

Anna grows up feeling very close to her father Eddie. He's a bagman of sorts for the dockworkers union during the depression. Lydia, Anna's younger disabled sister, is the center of Anna's and her mother's life. Not so much for Eddie though. His disabled daughter frightens and unnerves him. One of my favorite scenes in the book is Eddie's realization of what his unwillingness to let himself love Lydia has cost him.
Eddie disappears and his wife and daughter have to work hard to keep going and care for Lydia. Anna gets work in the Manhattan shipyards as the war starts, and comes to realize that she wants more than she is able to get, work-wise (and otherwise, Anna chafes against the restrictions of her time and place). She wants to be a diver. As her circumstances at home change, she tries to find a way to becoming one of the shipyard divers.
Later in the book we pick up on Eddie's story again, and see where he has gone and find out what happened between him and the enigmatic gangster, Dexter Styles. One of the better books in a year filled with great books, fun to read, good characters.