Reviewed by Julie Mollins
6.6.07

Bridging New York's East River to link Brooklyn and Manhattan was no mean feat. The Brooklyn Bridge, when it opened in 1883, was the longest of any suspension bridge yet built—its span 1,595 feet in length, almost one third of a mile. Hailed then as a miracle of engineering, it remained an iconic symbol of industry and free enterprise, a feature of the American Dream and its promise.

Emily Barton makes its construction, which is undertaken a century earlier than the Brooklyn Bridge's actual birth, the focus in her historical novel, Brookland. She uses it symbolically to highlight exclusionary aspects of the American Dream, notably the relegation of women to second-class status. The central characters are mainly women, and their efforts to combat sexist social traditions to achieve their goals become central to this engrossing, but somewhat long-winded story.

Brookland is a feminist tale of a woman's struggle to fulfill her ambition to run her father's Brooklyn-based gin distillery and build a bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Those undertakings would not be easy for a contemporary woman to achieve, but in the 18th Century, just as the Revolutionary War was drawing to a close, such ambition would have been inconceivable.

Prue decides at an early age that she wants to build a bridge across the water so that her father, who frequently goes to Manhattan by ferry on business, will have an easier, safer means of travel. As time passes, she eventually takes charge of his distillery and soon afterwards begins work on the bridge project. She marries surveyor Benjamin Horsfield, who becomes the owner of the distillery because laws at the time did not allow married women to be property owners.

Prue learns all she can about bridge engineering. She receives tutelage on the properties of wood from a local carpenter, reads mail-order books about engineering and spends a great deal of time experimenting. At this point the plot begins to meander and the amount of detail becomes somewhat stultifying.

Prue is prevented—because of her gender—from revealing that she is the person behind the initiative when it comes time to approach the government for financial support for the project. As much as she adores the loveable Ben, who takes credit for the bridge project with her blessing, she becomes resentful that she must take a back seat to him.

This situation is similar to that of the contemporary woman whose work in the home enables her husband to take public credit for their combined achievements. It calls to mind the feminist adage: “behind every great man is a great woman”.

The story is told partly through letters written by Prue to her daughter Recompense, and partly through the voice of an omniscient narrator. The letters are quaintly written: "You ask for the story of the bridgeworks, but if I am to give you not only the history of that matter but its justifications, I must begin by relating a metaphysickal [sic] crime I long ago committed against my sister Pearl," writes Prue to her daughter Recompense. "I laid a curse upon her when I was still a child. Perhaps you will think it peculiar of me to recall such a fancy now; but that tale itself unfolds from my twin obsessions with Mannahata & with Death."

These letters are the most pleasurable parts of the novel to read. Their fluidity and intimacy provide welcome respite from the highly detailed passages that make up the bulk of the book.

Prue can be seen as a modern woman trapped in a historical setting. The challenges she faces in her daily workaday life are not so different than challenges faced by women today. The tension in the novel between past and present highlights the idea that humanity has difficulty escaping its past. The knowledge that the Brooklyn Bridge was not built until much later than the novel suggests adds an element of fantasy to the story. The bridge ultimately becomes symbolic of the fallibility of the American Dream.

The subtext of the novel shows—through the challenges faced by Prue throughout her career—that although there are many more opportunities for women in the United States today, there are still barriers. Brookland's denouement makes its feminist point impressively.