Tesla: A Portrait with Masks

Serbian writer Pištalo’s novel gives a compelling fictionalized account of inventor Nikola Tesla’s inscrutable and solitary life. From a young age, Tesla forsook love as a fool’s distraction that impeded work and serious studies. He worked as a professor in Croatia before moving to the United States in search of Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of his time. Much to Tesla’s dismay, he soon finds Edison to be a hack who steals ideas from others. He quits his job under Edison and bounces around before finding space to invent again. Soon after, Tesla invents the alternating current electrical system—perhaps his most notable creation. As a result of his success, Tesla meets some of the world’s most important and famous figures, including a memorable encounter with Mark Twain (“If you don’t count thinking,” Tesla tells Twain, “I’m the laziest man in the world”). But his life remains lonely and as Tesla watches many of those around him succumb to disease, addiction, and age, he remains solitary to a fault. The book is episodic with some narration tics: for instance, at times, the unnamed narrator breaks the fourth wall. The book does not rise to the level of mythos associated with Tesla’s story, and is less biography than a fragmented set of impressions, but Pištalo’s thorough account of a great man’s personality and habits is done to fine effect. (Jan.)