Author(s): Samantha Hunt

General

In The Invention of Everything Else, Samantha Hunt fictionalizes the story of the Serbian-born scientist Nikola Tesla, inventor of radio and creator of AC electricity, a notoriously marginalized genius whose wild eccentricities, including obsessive-compulsive disorder and germ-phobia, have made him a counter culture icon, but who faded into obscurity in his final years and died in poverty, suspected of anti-American sentiment. His carelessness about protecting his ideas through patents meant that he was eclipsed in reputation by Thomas Edison and Marconi, both of whom built fortunes by stealing Tesla's ideas.

The Invention of Everything Else revolves around the twin poles of the inventor, and Louisa, a highly sensitive and imaginative young woman who encounters Tesla at the end of his life. It is also a novel about a father and a daughter, a love story, a New York story, and a literary mystery.

In this meticulously researched and biographically accurate novel, Samantha Hunt weaves these elements into a narrative that is buoyant, engaging, and triumphant, suggesting in its themes and structure the fulfillment of Tesla's scientific ideals. The writing is remarkable for its sustained energy and power. The Invention of Everything Else is a beautiful, moving, and thrilling exploration of human loneliness and isolation and the opposing power of emotional and scientific imagination.