Graham Moore certainly starts by getting your attention. First there is the quote and you wonder how that is related to this story of the Edison-Westinghouse feud. Then there is the man on fire. The promise of an interesting read.
I saw The Last Days of Night on Netgalley. It was set in late 19th century New York City which caught my interest. And it was about the Edison-Westinghouse feud over the merits of direct current (DC) and alternating current (AC). I knew a little about this AC/DC dispute but I was very fuzzy on the details. So this historical novel had two points of interest in its favor.
I decided to give The Last Days of Night a try and I’m glad I did. This review is based on my Advance Reading Copy (ARC) from Netgalley. The book will be published on 16 Aug 2016. .
I did not know that Edison v. Westinghouse was a big lawsuit for patent infringement. Edison was suing Westinghouse for a billion dollars. That is a lot of money. It was even more in the 1880s. The outcome of this would determine the course of the electrical revolution. But if this was so important, why did George Westinghouse pick an inexperienced lawyer?
As mentioned before, Graham Moore gets your attention right off. Then he weaves a wonderful story which both enlightens and entertains. He takes a story which could have been a rather dry recitation of the technical side of the electrical revolution and the associated legal maneuvering and turns it into a most interesting tale.
In Graham Moore’s notes at the end he clearly explains that this is a work of historic fiction. He tells us how he parted from or rearranged some historical facts and why he did it that way. He talks about the unknown history between the facts and how he filled in those gaps and why he thinks his assumption are reasonable.
I was even more impressed after I finished reading and looked on the Amazon page to get the image of the book and link for this review. I learned that Graham Moore is the Oscar-winning screenwriter of The Imitation Game and his previous book was a best-seller.
The Last Days of Night is a wonderful book and I highly recommend it
Jack…interesting…Edison vs Westinghouse…actually included JP Morgan Jr and Tesla also. Morgan backed Edison. Tesla, a former employee of Edison, left him and went to work with George Westinghouse. Telsla believed AC was more beneficial than DC…Edison and Morgan were DC guys. When a huge contract went the the AC team, Morgan was furious. He sued Westinghouse over patent infringement with the sole real purpose of drying up his capital so he couldn;t fulfill the contract he had won. Eventually, Morgan/ Edison took overfrom Westinghouse but using using AC..not DC. Edison tired of Edison’s stubborness and purchased all the shares of Edison Electric…edison’s company. He renamed it General Electric…very interesting real life portrayal of this on the documentary on the History channel titled “The Men who built America” . Fascinating. JP Morgan played a huge role in a number of maojr industries early on…including Carneige and US Steel. Morgan was no match for Rockefellar though. No one really was.
Hi Bill,
Interesting book. It did get into the Tesla and Morgan roles but told through a historic fiction perspective of Westinghouse’s lawyer. The documentary sounds interesting. I’ll look for it. Thanks. Jack