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Manhattan Transfer tells the story of multiple characters in as they make their way in New York. Their stories illustrate that what is most important in New York City are shallow qualities, such as wealth, youth, and material possessions.
Bud Korpenning is a farm boy who comes to New York looking for work. He struggles to make his way in a city focused on superficial qualities. He is also always looking over his shoulder and avoiding the police. After he has been in the city for months, he still has not been able to find steady work, and he lives in a homeless shelter. This is primarily due to the stranglehold that unions have on labor in the city. Compounding Bud’s lack of education and money is the fact that he does not have a union card. While in the shelter, Bud shares with another man that he killed his father before he left the farm. The pressure has become too great, and Bud loses hope that he will be able to make a life for himself in the city. He jumps to his death from the Brooklyn Bridge.
Ellen loses her mother at a young age. Even before her mother’s death, though, Ellen is raised by her father, Ed. After Ed leaves the city to live a quiet life in New Jersey as an accountant, he reads about his famous daughter in the gossip pages with discomfort. Ellen becomes a Broadway actress. Her first marriage is to Jojo Oglethorpe and is one of convenience for both of them. Ellen gets out of the chorus and uses Jojo’s clout in the industry to get more impressive parts. Jojo, in return, has cover for his homosexuality. Destined to fail, the two end the marriage after a public and embarrassing scene in the apartment building where they live with other actors. During her marriage to Jojo, Ellen begins an affair with Stan, another ill-fated relationship. Ellen and Stan love each other, but they both have self-destructive tendencies.
The son of a wealthy and well-connected New York lawyer, Stan is a ne’er-do-well who gets fired from Harvard because of his excessive drinking. He becomes fast friends with Jimmy, a newspaper reporter and another of Ellen’s admirers. From Jimmy’s perspective, things seem to come easy for Stan. He has a different approach to life than Jimmy, who is cerebral and overanalyzes everything. Unlike Jimmy, Stan is materialistic and has demons that he keeps at bay with alcohol. On his last night, before killing himself in a drunken stupor, Stan goes to a dance that he has no business attending and makes a scene before getting thrown out. Not only does Stan leave behind Ellen and an unborn baby, but he also squanders his potential to be a successful architect.
When Jimmy returns to New York with his mother Lily as a young boy, things seem hopeful. Soon though, he is thrown into a lonely future when Lily passes away after a short illness. The city can never again be a happy place for Jimmy. Ellen is the only other woman besides his mother that Jimmy ever loves, but she is with Stan when Jimmy meets her. After Stan’s tragic death, Ellen and Jimmy marry in Europe during World War I. This is a convenient match for Ellen because her baby Martin will have a father. The couple’s time in Europe is the only time Jimmy is happy. Upon returning, he always talks about leaving the city, but he does not do so until the end of his story.
Throughout almost the entire book, and during her many other relationships, Ellen sees a man named George Baldwin. George is a successful New York lawyer who, by the end of the book, has developed political aspirations. While he enters a doomed marriage to improve his social standing, he only loves Ellen. Ellen continues to see George during her marriage to Jojo and her relationship with Stan. The only time the two do not see each other regularly is when she returns from Europe, as a new wife and mother. Both of them are finally single by the end of the book, and George is desperate to marry Ellen. She unceremoniously agrees to marry him, although she feels herself physically hardening at the thought of it. She resents George, but in keeping with her tendency to plan ahead, she marries him because she is getting older and is running out of options if she wants to stay relevant in a materialistic New York.
