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Drawn from the life of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of his time, Lightning is a captivating tale of one man's curious fascination with the marvels of science. Echenoz traces the notable career of Gregor, a precocious young engineer from Eastern Europe, who travels across the Atlantic at the age of twenty-eight to work alongside Thomas Edison, with whom he later holds a long-lasting rivalry. After his discovery of alternating current, Gregor quickly begins to astound the world with his other brilliant inventions, including everything from radio, radar, and wireless communication to cellular technology, remote control, and the electron microscope. Echenoz gradually reveals the eccentric inner world of a solitary man who holds a rare gift for imagining devices well before they come into existence. Gregor is a recluse-an odd and enigmatic intellect who avoids women and instead prefers spending hours a day courting pigeons in Central Park. Winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, Echenoz once again demonstrates his astonishing abilities as a prose stylist as he vividly captures the life of an isolated genius. A beautifully crafted portrait of a man who prefers the company of lightning in the Colorado desert to that of other human beings, Lightning is a dazzling new work from one of the world's leading contemporary authors.
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Reviews
"Echenoz captures the spare beauty of Tesla, this often-drawn and much-translated figure, till his death at 86. He is a lean ghost in the history of power, electricity and invention. Echenoz fixes him even more firmly in our imaginations."
Los Angeles Times, Starred Review
"Not many nineteenth-century inventors would first dazzle an employer with unprecedented feats of electrical engineering and then relieve that employer from the unexpected burden of paying promised premiums for those feats by tearing up a contract worth millions. But readers meet such a rare genius in this engrossing novel, a finely etched fictional portrait of Nikola Tesla (here depicted as Grego
Booklist
"The affecting story of a difficult and misunderstood European visionary on American shores comprises this lyrical, slender novel by Prix Goncourtwinner Echenoz (Running). Born during a lightning storm 'somewhere in southeastern Europe' in the mid-19th century, Gregor has many wonderfully inventive ideas from an early agea rapid mail tube running under the Atlantic Ocean, harnessing the power of N
Publishers Weekly