The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This novel, one I read only because it was a choice of my book club, is a historical fiction depicting the interplay between Thomas Edison, George Westinghouse, and Nikola Tesla over the “war” between direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC). The central character is Paul Cravath, the original founder of what became the famous law firm Cravath, Swaine, and Moore. The female lead is Agnes Huntington, a renowned singer of the day and later the real Paul Cravath’s wife. There are many more characters and keeping them all straight is rather difficult. That may be one reason I didn’t much enjoy the book. I found the historical part interesting, although much of it highly implausible. The author’s notes declare it to be mostly true or at least plausible, but I find that hard to believe. The way the author describes it, everyone, including governments, police, and common citizens lived in fear of Edison, J.P. Morgan, or Westinghouse sending Pinkerton agents to kill them or ruin their lives. Many supposed events that were critical to the plot, like Tesla’s mental breakdown and amnesia, are not even mentioned in the lengthy Wikipedia entry on Tesla. The Tesla in the book is a near lunatic with no sense of business and no social graces, yet other public sources indicate that he founded and ran profitable companies and socialized with many famous people. I realize that the book is a novel, but I find it disturbing when historic events and people are presented in what seems to me to be an inaccurate way. Use fictional characters if you want to tell a fictional story. The writing style is florid and the love story is perhaps the most implausible part of the plot. Still, the story of the science and technology breakthroughs and rivalries kept the book interesting enough.