From Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian, comes a thrilling novel--based on actual events--about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America.
New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history--and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?
The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society--the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansion, and the more insidious dealings …
From Graham Moore, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and New York Times bestselling author of The Sherlockian, comes a thrilling novel--based on actual events--about the nature of genius, the cost of ambition, and the battle to electrify America.
New York, 1888. Gas lamps still flicker in the city streets, but the miracle of electric light is in its infancy. The person who controls the means to turn night into day will make history--and a vast fortune. A young untested lawyer named Paul Cravath, fresh out of Columbia Law School, takes a case that seems impossible to win. Paul's client, George Westinghouse, has been sued by Thomas Edison over a billion-dollar question: Who invented the light bulb and holds the right to power the country?
The case affords Paul entry to the heady world of high society--the glittering parties in Gramercy Park mansion, and the more insidious dealings done behind closed doors. The task facing him is beyond daunting. Edison is a wily, dangerous opponent with vast resources at his disposal--private spies, newspapers in his pocket, and the backing of J. P. Morgan himself. Yet this unknown lawyer shares with his famous adversary a compulsion to win at all costs. How will he do it?
In obsessive pursuit of victory, Paul crosses paths with Nikola Tesla, an eccentric, brilliant inventor who may hold the key to defeating Edison, and with Agnes Huntington, a beautiful opera singer who proves to be a flawless performer on stage and off. As Paul takes greater and greater risks, he'll find that everyone in his path is playing their own game, and no one is quite who they seem.
Moore's writing style is fantastic. I wish he had more books published. This was a very enjoyable walk through the late 1800s as a lawyer involved in the fight for how the power of electricity would be controlled and rolled out in America. Edison, Westinghouse, and Tesla are the major actors here and each one gets satisfying character development. Its historical fiction but nearly all the important details are historical and Moore writes a whole chapter going point by point as to what he fictionalized and why.
I'd like to write a more comprehensive review, but I may never do so, so I'll write some quick thoughts now! I had a lot of fun reading this, both because the parallels to contemporary technology (made rather explicit by the quotes that open chapters) are fascinating and because the characters involved were fascinating too. I also love the information that the author closes with, clarifying where, how, and why he took the artistic liberties with people and chronologies as he did. I wholeheartedly recommend this to anyone interested in the history of technology! The prose was surprisingly lovely and fun (if a tad hammy, but appropriately so) too.
