The Waterworks

Set in 1871 New York, American writer, editor, and professor E.L. 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. Setting out to track him down, Martin uncovers the sinister plot of mad pseudo-scientists and mystics to extend their lifespans. 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.

The novel is told from the perspective of McIlvaine, Martin’s editor, looking back from the early 1900s. In 1871, Martin is a freelance journalist, hardly mourning his recently dead father, Augustus. Augustus had renounced and disinherited Martin after Martin spoke out against his exploitative methods of amassing his business fortune. Shortly after the funeral, Martin catches sight of Augustus in a horse-drawn carriage, surrounded by other older, sharply dressed men. 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. Grimshaw. Within a few days, Martin vanishes.

McIlvane investigates what happened, leading him to various friends in the family, including Harry and Augustus’s widow, Sarah Pemberton. Harry reveals that he and Martin had exhumed Augustus’s grave to confirm that he was indeed dead, and found the body of a child instead. Sarah tells McIlvane that Augustus was diagnosed with an incurable, ultimately fatal, blood disease. With the help of Eustace Simmons, his assistant, he joined an experimental sanitarium in upstate New York near Saranac Lake, overseen by Dr. Sartorius. This hospital was where he allegedly died. Sarah reveals that Augustus’s wealth disappeared before he died, leaving her and her son, Noah, in poverty.



McIlvane connects with an old friend, the police chief Edmund Donne, to enlist him in the investigation. However, he discovers that Donne has his own motive for joining, for he used to date Sarah. They find no evidence of such a hospital as described near Saranac Lake. Instead, they find The Home for Little Wanderers, an orphanage overseen by Eustace Simmons. There, they find Martin imprisoned in the basement, emaciated and near death from starvation.

While Martin recovers, he begins to reveal what happened after Simmons kidnapped him to keep him silent about his father. Augustus faked his death to join a group of other wealthy, terminally ill men under the supervision of Dr. Sartorius. Dr. Sartorius, a doctor from the Civil War famous for his innovative, extreme treatments, has invented a host of new medical procedures meant to extend life. These procedures come with a grave cost: they rely on the sacrifice of children and the harvesting of their blood and cells. Dr. Sartorius justifies the sacrifices, claiming that the children died of fright, while in reality, he drove them into exhaustion and malaise. He has now partnered with the cohort of wealthy men, who call themselves the Tweed Ring, to implement his treatments and experiments with impunity.

Donne locates the sanitarium deep within a waterworks plant on the city’s outskirts. The police raid the building, leading to a cascade of events, including the dissolution of the Tweed Ring. All of Sartorius’s patients are discovered dead, with the exception of Augustus, who remains missing. Sartorius is taken to the asylum on Blackwell’s Island; delusional, he continues to assert that he is doing research. Augustus’s body is finally found at his former home. Simmons dies in a freak accident while trying to escape with Augustus’s money. At the end of the novel, Sarah, Augustus’s widow, inherits his wealth. She and Donne marry. Martin heals and weds Emily. McIlvane continues to write but decides not to publish anything about his investigation.