wAshington Augustus Roebling, or “Wash”, was the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge, which was the longest suspension bridge in the world when it opened to the public on May 24, 1883. It was quite an accomplishment, but he didn’t do it alone. On one side was his father, the ascetic and tyrant John Roebling, who designed and commissioned the bridge before his untimely death in 1869. On the other hand was his wife, the accomplished and capable Emily, who, along with providing moral and secretarial support, took on even greater responsibility for the project after Washington’s own health mysteriously deteriorated.
The Wash is a companion piece to Roebling’s 2017 biography of the chief engineer, Erica Wagner. Rejecting what she calls “clock time” in her epilogue, she has structured the narrative according to “soul time”; That is, by jumping backward and forward in time and space in a series of short chapters emphasizing the personal moments, choices, and encounters that together made this remarkable man who he was. It’s a daring and engaging, if somewhat disorienting, approach that gives this slender novel a vibrancy and intensity that might have been smoothed over into a more traditional narrative arc.
The story begins in 1849 in Trenton, New Jersey. John Roebling’s house is a depressing place to grow up. A self-made man, now rich from his wire rope business and famous for his Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge, Roebling is a demanding and demanding – not to mention stingy – individual. “The man who bridged Niagara, and a whole lot more besides”, comments a bitter but awed Wash, “makes many a ditch tremble at the sight of him!” So do his wife and children, who keep their eyes downcast and voices low in his presence, because “it was the safest way”. They often go hungry; The leash is often at hand. Needless to say, Wash had a tragic childhood.
Fortunately, happiness comes in the form of two individuals: Max Anderman, a fellow engineering student, and Emily Warren, his future wife. Max is a charming and personable man (based on a real person, but here his name has been changed), who shows an immediate urge for the undernourished and overworked Wash. Tall, good-looking and well-groomed (like a “Macassar-scented bear”), he adds a new dimension to Wash’s harsh existence. They speak openly to each other about their difficult childhoods (“Washington had never talked to anyone like that before”), and eventually share a kiss. Wash away a photo of two people taken together for the rest of your life.
Emily, too, brings intelligence and warmth to Wash’s life, as well as a new determination to succeed in a different way from her father. “A new leaf. A new life. From this very moment”, he vows. The two have become a sort of 19th-century power couple, running this unprecedented project almost, but not quite, equally. As Wash becomes increasingly unwell, Emily comes to be relied upon as “carer, nurse, secretary – and increasingly, she felt, engineer”. Wagner pays due attention to the emotional impact such a man has on his wife. While he drills holes in his plans and his rock samples, he is left to deal with the politics and practicalities of the outside world. “He needed solitude,” Emily thinks to herself. “But what did he want?”
Wagner clearly has a deeply personal connection to the Brooklyn Bridge and to washing herself (in her later words she admits that as a young woman “I thought I was in love with it”). The happy result is a detailed and multifaceted portrait of a largely American life. Although the reader may not develop an all-consuming crush on Washington Augustus Roebling, this subtle and idiosyncratic novel shows that his life was worth revisiting.
