![]() ![]() ![]() McIlvane investigates what happened, leading him to various friends in the family, including Harry and Augustus’s widow, Sarah Pemberton. Martin tells only a few people of what he saw, including the narrator, the narrator’s fiancée, Emily Tisdale, a college friend Harry Wheelwright, and the family’s priest, Dr. Shortly after the funeral, Martin catches sight of Augustus in a horse-drawn carriage, surrounded by other older, sharply dressed men. Augustus had renounced and disinherited Martin after Martin spoke out against his exploitative methods of amassing his business fortune. In 1871, Martin is a freelance journalist, hardly mourning his recently dead father, Augustus. The novel is told from the perspective of McIlvaine, Martin’s editor, looking back from the early 1900s. ![]() The novel references failures in (or, lack of) medical ethics in the late nineteenth century, showing how the secret sanitariums in which the scientists conducted their research were allied with inequalities of wealth, class, and access to institutions. Setting out to track him down, Martin uncovers the sinister plot of mad pseudo-scientists and mystics to extend their lifespans. Doctorow’s novel The Waterworks (1994) concerns freelance journalist Martin Pemberton who, after being disinherited by his rich, allegedly deceased father, glimpses him alive in the city. Set in 1871 New York, American writer, editor, and professor E.L. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |