Cover art by Alice Marwick
My first book, SEWER, was released by Bloomsbury in November 2022. (You can order the print or e-book here.)
The book is about sewer systems and wastewater treatment plants—as ecosystems, engineering marvels, environmental woes, barometers of life on the surface. I travel from Detroit to London, into labs and underground, to show readers how sewers can be seen as a mirror to the world above at a time when our behaviors are drastically reshaping the environment for the worse.
Praise for SEWER:
Named one of Mental Floss’s 25 books to give as holiday gifts.
“Sewer gives you that magical feeling of peeking behind the curtain—or should I say, under the manhole—into a hidden world. Let Jessica Leigh Hester be your guide to fatbergs, sea snot, and all the things we might think we don't want to ponder, but which nevertheless become enchanting in her winsome prose.” — Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic
“Jessica Leigh Hester drops feet-first into a Hadean underworld of tunnels and drains, bacteria and geology. Sewer proves that some of our most consequential urban achievements are seldom seen-and rarely so well illuminated. Come for the fatbergs, stay for Hester's lucid history of architecture and engineering, public health and political ambition.” — Geoff Manaugh, New York Times-bestselling author of A Burglar's Guide to the City