Helpful Score: 1
Tracey Enerson Wood's first published novel represents exactly what I like most and least about historical fiction.
It presents a wide-open window into history, uncovering overlooked women (of which there have been many in recent years - I think of Hidden Figures and the abundance of recent books, both fiction and nonfiction, about female scientists and female WWII spies, for example), shedding light on their importance. (The flyleaf proclaims, "She built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow.") The central woman here is Emily Warren Roebling, wife of the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge and a woman whose name I had never heard of. I wonder if those who often use the Brooklyn Bridge know of her? Wood paints her vividly, as a complex figure: bold and passionate about her only son Johnny, the women's suffrage movement, and the bridge construction process, but tremendously nervous when required to give speeches and thoroughly unskilled as a seamstress. The novel also provides a window into American life in the 1860s and the two subsequent decades, especially that in New York along the river.
A reader learns so much about early bridge-building as well - its incredible challenges and the loss of life it involved (of 600+ workers, at least twenty died and many were injured). For much of the book, the Brooklyn Bridge's caissons are under construction. These bridge supports constructed under the water were very dangerous wood and concrete "boxes" to which workers (all men, except Emily) descended to chip and blast and build. Beyond fear of the caissons' collapse, these selfless employees faced fire and explosions and, due to the air pressure changes, "the bends" and "caisson disease," with its debilitating effects such as nausea, blood seepage from the ears, shaking limbs, and paralysis. Once the caissons were built, acrobats were hired to string the wires back and forth from the towers built on the caissons, also facing danger of falling from incredible heights to their death. Beyond the physical challenges, bridge-builders also faced uncertain financial backing, sabotage (involving shoddy wire, in this instance), and public backlash. How much we take for granted when crossing such bridges!
Against this backdrop of wire and wood, Emily, her husband "Wash," and P.T. Barnum play the three central roles. The whirlwind romance between Emily and Captain Washington Roebling cools when Emily's patriotic dreams are supplanted, of necessity, by a main role in the bridge construction after Wash suffers horrid injury on the job. As Wash deals with his physical wounds, the marital relationship suffers. The larger-than-life figure of Barnum and his "greatest show on earth" enters the picture, and Emily is drawn to him and he to her. Ironically, while the bridge's towers come together, they push the Roeblings apart.
The book's narrative, then, is spurred on by two central questions: will the bridge be finished? And will Emily leave Wash for "PT"?
The problem is that in Wood's book, as in so many other works of historical fiction, the facts get twisted up with the fictional events, and I walk away from the book with an impression of Emily that is likely wrong, probably significantly so. Barnum is central to Wood, but she acknowledges in the Afterword that his role in building the bridge and his relationship with Emily are entirely her imagination. Part of the reason for the tension between Emily and Wash is his sexual dysfunction after his accident, which may or may not have been one of his symptoms. Other key aspects of the narrative, such as the significant character of Benjamin Stone and Emily's fear of water due to the childhood loss of her sister Elizabeth to drowning, are not historically accurate.
My conclusion is that I feel like I know Emily, that I would recognize her if she somehow walked into the room more than a century after her death - but that such a person never existed. Certainly, Emily Roebling did - a strong-willed, fast-learning, confused, dedicated heroine did - just not the one I imagine.
It presents a wide-open window into history, uncovering overlooked women (of which there have been many in recent years - I think of Hidden Figures and the abundance of recent books, both fiction and nonfiction, about female scientists and female WWII spies, for example), shedding light on their importance. (The flyleaf proclaims, "She built a monument for all time. Then she was lost in its shadow.") The central woman here is Emily Warren Roebling, wife of the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge and a woman whose name I had never heard of. I wonder if those who often use the Brooklyn Bridge know of her? Wood paints her vividly, as a complex figure: bold and passionate about her only son Johnny, the women's suffrage movement, and the bridge construction process, but tremendously nervous when required to give speeches and thoroughly unskilled as a seamstress. The novel also provides a window into American life in the 1860s and the two subsequent decades, especially that in New York along the river.
A reader learns so much about early bridge-building as well - its incredible challenges and the loss of life it involved (of 600+ workers, at least twenty died and many were injured). For much of the book, the Brooklyn Bridge's caissons are under construction. These bridge supports constructed under the water were very dangerous wood and concrete "boxes" to which workers (all men, except Emily) descended to chip and blast and build. Beyond fear of the caissons' collapse, these selfless employees faced fire and explosions and, due to the air pressure changes, "the bends" and "caisson disease," with its debilitating effects such as nausea, blood seepage from the ears, shaking limbs, and paralysis. Once the caissons were built, acrobats were hired to string the wires back and forth from the towers built on the caissons, also facing danger of falling from incredible heights to their death. Beyond the physical challenges, bridge-builders also faced uncertain financial backing, sabotage (involving shoddy wire, in this instance), and public backlash. How much we take for granted when crossing such bridges!
Against this backdrop of wire and wood, Emily, her husband "Wash," and P.T. Barnum play the three central roles. The whirlwind romance between Emily and Captain Washington Roebling cools when Emily's patriotic dreams are supplanted, of necessity, by a main role in the bridge construction after Wash suffers horrid injury on the job. As Wash deals with his physical wounds, the marital relationship suffers. The larger-than-life figure of Barnum and his "greatest show on earth" enters the picture, and Emily is drawn to him and he to her. Ironically, while the bridge's towers come together, they push the Roeblings apart.
The book's narrative, then, is spurred on by two central questions: will the bridge be finished? And will Emily leave Wash for "PT"?
The problem is that in Wood's book, as in so many other works of historical fiction, the facts get twisted up with the fictional events, and I walk away from the book with an impression of Emily that is likely wrong, probably significantly so. Barnum is central to Wood, but she acknowledges in the Afterword that his role in building the bridge and his relationship with Emily are entirely her imagination. Part of the reason for the tension between Emily and Wash is his sexual dysfunction after his accident, which may or may not have been one of his symptoms. Other key aspects of the narrative, such as the significant character of Benjamin Stone and Emily's fear of water due to the childhood loss of her sister Elizabeth to drowning, are not historically accurate.
My conclusion is that I feel like I know Emily, that I would recognize her if she somehow walked into the room more than a century after her death - but that such a person never existed. Certainly, Emily Roebling did - a strong-willed, fast-learning, confused, dedicated heroine did - just not the one I imagine.
