Lightning

"Lightning"is a captivating fictionalized biography of Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest inventors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, written by "the master magician of the contemporary French novel" ("The Washington Post"). The book 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 and quickly begins to astound the world with his brilliant inventions. As Echenoz reveals in a style that is "impeccable, full of finesse and promise" (Le Monde), this profoundly solitary man holds a rare gift for imagining devices well before they come into existence, but which soon become essential for future generations. Although he works alongside the most accomplished figures of the era, Gregor becomes swept up in his world of lightning and loses sight of who is profiting from his work.