The Last Days of Night

Thomas Edison is the self-proclaimed inventor of the lightbulb and the main antagonist in the novel. One of the most famous men in America, Edison has crafted a mythic stature in the public’s consciousness. He’s a man who found early success and was a millionaire by age 30. The public sees him as a “wizard,” and the papers follow him religiously. He is extremely egotistical, myopic, and firmly confident in his own genius, practically inventing the idea of the brand. Edison is powerfully engaged in hundreds of lawsuits against many people and companies in competition with him. Many of his tactics within these conflicts are manipulative, dangerous, and illegal. He bribes the powerful, all the way up to New York State legislators, to ensure his dominance in his field. The system of invention employed in his laboratory is unlike any other, a factory of hierarchical structure with many engineers working on tasks assigned by Edison.

Edison serves as a foil to almost all of the other main characters. Where Westinghouse ambitiously creates products, Edison ambitiously creates systems of creation. Where Tesla worships ideas, Edison worships power and fame. Paul, however, is most akin to Edison in his goals, even going so far as to draw inspiration from Edison’s system of invention and create his own within the legal practice. Although Edison’s fellow engineers hate him, ironically, none hate him with as much passion as Paul.

Edison makes a crucial error in underestimating Tesla and his alternating current design. In the end, Edison loses his company to J.P. Morgan and Westinghouse due to cunning and manipulative tactics by Paul. However, he returns to his roots as a simple inventor, aided by the compassion and support of former competitor, Alexander Graham Bell.

Head of Westinghouse Electric Company, George Westinghouse is one of Edison’s biggest competitors. Paul and his firm represent him. Westinghouse is an imposing and confident man: “He had a bearlike frame, burly muttonchops, and a grizzled mustache so large that it completely hid both his upper lip and the majority of the lower one” (20). Paul feels intimidated and awed by Westinghouse, seeing him at first as a sort of mentor or father figure. Paul makes multiple mistakes in his fight against Edison, and Westinghouse is not afraid to reproach him for them. Like Edison, Westinghouse is extremely egotistical and confident in his own genius.

Although he understands Tesla’s ideas better than Edison does, Westinghouse is still a secret foe to Tesla. Attempting to scare Tesla into working on his lightbulb design, Westinghouse sets fire to Tesla’s laboratory, almost killing the inventor and Paul. When Paul learns this information, his relationship with Westinghouse cools significantly.

Westinghouse eventually joins his company in a partnership with Edison’s when Edison is ousted, although he loses the big lightbulb patent lawsuit. He lives the rest of his days highly successful, lighting the U.S. with his and Tesla’s alternating current system.

Nikola Tesla is unlike any of the other engineers in the novel. Dreamy and artistic, Tesla’s creativity is otherworldly. Aware and accepting of his genius, Tesla is nonetheless egoless. Unlike everyone else, Tesla is not capitalistic, although he does enjoy being around high society. Tesla only wants his inventions to be shared with the world: “It matters not at all whether these things are built. I have seen them in my mind. And I know that they work. Whether they are products in your markets—what concern is that to me?” (64).

Tesla proves himself to be sensitive, but relatively unempathetic. He is motivated purely by his work and little can deter him from it. He does have a soft spot for Agnes, whose voice he finds spellbinding. Due in part to Paul’s manipulation of him (signing away his royalties on alternating current), Tesla eventually dies penniless.

Agnes Huntington is a famous singer and Paul’s love interest. She is very talented, quick-witted, beautiful, and deeply compassionate:

And yet as pristine as she appeared, her demeanor was not delicate. She was no porcelain doll. She was a distant glacier. Remote, quiet, and yet possessed of great and unknowable activity beneath the surface (84).

Born Agnes Gouge, Agnes’s mother, Fannie, steals a very expensive dress and jewelry so that they can embody new identities as Huntingtons, beginning in Paris. This ruse is successful, and Agnes eventually settles in New York to sing for the Metropolitan Opera. When the owner of her former singing troupe threatens to sully her reputation, Fannie and Agnes seek Paul’s legal representation.

Despite her questionable rise to fame, Agnes shames Paul for his treatment of Tesla and tells him he is just as crooked as Edison. Her love is what draws Paul back to a moral path, and together they become philanthropists. 

Agnes’s mother is Fannie Huntington. Fannie is a shrewd and brave person, concocting a plan to get her and Agnes out of poverty and into the limelight. She steals a dress and jewelry from her wealthy and powerful employer and takes Agnes to Paris, where they slip into high society. She lives in the shadows, however, afraid of being discovered thereafter. Paul eventually secures her future by getting J.P. Morgan to bully Fannie’s former employer into silence.

Alexander Graham is the inventor of the telephone and only person to successfully beat Edison at the patent game. Highly reclusive, Bell amasses his fortune and then disappears into remote Canada with his family. Even though he is very wealthy, he dresses humbly. Bell’s approach to inventing is creative and joyful. Ironically, he doesn’t own a telephone, as he finds it annoying. Bell is instrumental in Paul’s victory over Edison, helping him adjust his strategy. Eventually, he helps Edison reclaim himself as an inventor after losing his company. 

J.P. Morgan is the financial titan who owns 60% of Edison’s stock as well as more than half the companies on the New York Stock Exchange. With Paul, he effectively enacts a coup against Edison, outing him from his own company and creating the merger with the Westinghouse Electric Company. This results in the creation of General Electric. Morgan plants a spy in Westinghouse’s lab and continually tries to take over General Electric, proving him to be intelligent, conniving, and untrustworthy.

A journalist and failed inventor, Harold Brown runs a smear campaign against Westinghouse, displaying the falsified “dangers” of alternating current by electrocuting dogs to death in public demonstrations. At the secret behest of Edison, Brown petitions the New York State legislature to adopt “the electrical chair” (powered by Westinghouse alternating current technology) for use in capital punishment. His actions prove him to be cruel and manipulative. 

Lemuel Serrell is Tesla’s lawyer. His father was possibly the first patent lawyer in existence. Serrell’s office is a unique mix of scientists and lawyers. He “adopted the role of the thoughtful moderate. A kind of disinterested third party who wanted only for Tesla and Westinghouse to reach a fair agreement” (72), but ultimately exploits Paul’s inexperience to grant Tesla an uncommonly generous royalty package that almost drives Westinghouse bankrupt.