Washington Augustus Roebling, or “Wash”, was the chief engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, which, when opened to the public on 24 May 1883, was the longest suspension bridge in the world. It was quite an achievement, but he didn’t do it alone. On the one hand there was his father, the austere and tyrannical John Roebling, who had designed and begun the bridge before his untimely death in 1869. On the other there was his wife, the accomplished and capable Emily, who, as well as providing moral and secretarial support, took on ever more responsibility for the project after Washington’s own health began to fail mysteriously.
Wash is something of a companion piece to Chief Engineer, Erica Wagner’s 2017 biography of Roebling. Spurning what she calls in her afterword “the clock’s time”, she has instead structured the narrative in accordance with “the soul’s time”; that is, by jumping backwards and forwards in time and place in a series of short chapters emphasising those individual moments, choices and encounters that together made this remarkable man who he was. It is a bold and engaging, if somewhat disorienting approach, giving this slender novel a vividness and intensity that might be smoothed over in a more traditional narrative arc.
The story begins in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1849. The household of John Roebling is a depressing place in which to grow up. A self-made man, now rich from his wire rope business and famous for his Niagara Falls suspension bridge, Roebling is an oppressive and exacting – not to mention parsimonious – figure. “The man who bridged Niagara, and much else besides”, remarks a bitter but awed Wash, “the very chasms tremble at his approach!” So too do his wife and children, who keep their eyes down and their voices low when in his presence, for “it was much the safest way”. They frequently go hungry; the strap is often at hand. Needless to say, Wash’s childhood is an unhappy one.
Fortunately, happiness comes in the form of two individuals: Max Andermann, a fellow engineering student, and Emily Warren, his future wife. Max is a charming and attractive figure (based on a real person, but here renamed), who shows immediate solicitude 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 austere existence. They open up to one another about their difficult childhoods (“Washington had never spoken to anyone in this way before”), and eventually share a kiss. Wash treasures a photograph of the two men together for the rest of his life.
Emily, too, brings wit and warmth into Wash’s life, as well as a fresh determination to succeed in a manner different from that of his father. “A new leaf. A new life. From this very moment”, he vows. The two become a sort of 19th-century power couple, running the groundbreaking project almost, but not quite, as equals. As Wash becomes increasingly unwell, Emily is more and more relied upon as “caretaker, nursemaid, secretary – and increasingly, she felt, engineer”. Wagner gives due attention to the emotional toll taken on the wife of such a man. While he holes up with his plans and his rock samples, she is left to deal with the politics and practicalities of the outside world. “Solitude was what he required,” Emily thinks to herself. “But what did she require?”
Wagner clearly has a deep personal connection to Brooklyn Bridge and to Wash himself (in her afterword she admits that as a young woman “I thought I was in love with him”). The happy result is a richly detailed and multifaceted portrait of a monumental American life. While the reader may not develop an all-consuming crush on Washington Augustus Roebling, this nuanced and idiosyncratic novel shows that his was a life worth revisiting.
• Wash by Erica Wagner is published by Salt (£10.99). To support the Guardian buy a copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
