Building bridges: Erica Wagner’s ‘Wash’
by Kirsty Hamilton-Emery
There are books that do more than tell a story – they build a world from the inside out. Erica Wagner’s Wash is one of them. A richly imagined and intimate portrait of a singular life, Wash takes as its hero Washington Roebling, the visionary engineer behind the Brooklyn Bridge – and transforms his story into something deeper and stranger: an anti-biography, a work of fiction that both illuminates and unsettles what we think of as fact.
Salt Publishing has acquired UK and Commonwealth rights (excluding Canada) to Wash, a major new novel by award-winning author and critic Erica Wagner, from Eleanor Birne at RCW. The book will be published in May 2026 as a B-format paperback original.
Wagner, the author of Chief Engineer, the acclaimed biography of Roebling, returns to her subject to ask new questions about ambition, love, and legacy. Wash explores masculinity and sexuality, achievement and damage, in prose that feels both tactile and transcendent. It is a book that folds time in on itself – carrying readers from the battlefields of war to the shimmering cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, from Roebling’s formidable father to his enduring partnership with his brilliant wife, Emily.
‘The novel offers a true voice for the past,’ Wagner says, ‘while also questioning some of the received notions of that past. I look forward to building bridges with my readers, thanks to Chris Hamilton-Emery and his great team.’
For Salt, the collaboration marks an exciting addition to its 2026 list. ‘We are honoured to be publishing Erica Wagner’s Wash,’ says Salt’s director, Chris Hamilton-Emery. ‘It is a novel of great sophistication and subtlety, vividly bringing to life the choices, compromises, and loves that shape us. This is a book of wonder and resonance.’
A writer of exceptional range – her works include Gravity: Stories, Ariel’s Gift, and Seizure: A Novel – Wagner was literary editor of The Times for seventeen years and has twice judged the Booker Prize. She now writes for The Observerand other leading publications in Britain and the United States.
Beautifully crafted and emotionally charged, Wash is a story about the price of achievement and the architecture of a life – the human bridge between imagination and endurance.
Wash will be published by Salt on 18 May 2026, priced £10.99, supported by a major campaign across trade, media, and digital channels.
Erica Wagner’s works include Gravity: Stories, Ariel’s Gift and Seizure: A Novel. Twice a judge of the Man Booker Prize, she was literary editor of The Times for seventeen years, and she is now writes for The Observer, as well as many publications in Britain and the United States.
