Emily P

This is the first book that I've been tempted to review for BookBrowse.com. The book concerns the life of one of my favorite historical figures. It is rumored that Nikola Tesla developed his inventions, including the polyphase ac generators, as a synasthete would, by seeing the finished machinery working in a vision as the inception or the impetus for his analytical process of invention. This book reads as if it were originally conceived as a fully finished film. The chapters are all composed as dramatic acts of a stage play. Each progression in the book is perfectly separated from the rest by a change in scene, set-up of character, and a preamble literary quote perfectly capturing the theme of the coming chapter. The book touches on events that transpire over the 86 years of Tesla's life. The presence of the other characters in the story, along with the omissions of several key background events and other information, enforce the message that the book is written to deter people from becoming so focused on single loves or inventions that they let those inventions occlude their vision. I could almost hear the author whisper gently that it is the passionate, the single-minded who perish, while it is those who can handle loss who will progress to see the invention of everything else.