The Engineer's Wife

Summary

She built a monument for all time.Then she was lost in its shadow.Emily Warren Roebling refuses to live conventionally—she knows who she is and what she wants, and she’s determinedto make change. But then her husband, Wash, asks the unthinkable: give up her dreams to make his possible.Emily’s fight for women’s suffrage is put on hold and her life transformed when Wash, the chief engineer of the BrooklynBridge, is injured on the job. Untrained for the task, but under his guidance, she assumes his role, despite stern resistanceand overwhelming obstacles. Lines blur as Wash’s vision becomes her own, and when he is unable to return to the job, Emilyis consumed by it. But as the project takes shape under Emily’s direction, she wonders whose legacy she is building—hers,or her husband’s. As the monument rises, Emily’s marriage, principles, and identity threaten to collapse. When the bridgefinally stands finished, will she recognize the woman who built it?Based on the true story of the Brooklyn Bridge, The Engineer’s Wife delivers an emotional portrait of a woman transformedby a project of unfathomable scale, which takes her into the bowels of the East River, suffragette riots, the halls of Manhattan’selite, and the heady, freewheeling temptations of P. T. Barnum. It’s the story of a husband and wife determined to buildsomething that lasts—even at the risk of losing each other