In the Matter of Nikola Tesla: A Romance of the Mind by Anthony Flacco

In The Matter Of Nikola Tesla places the reader squarely behind the eyes of the 20th Century’s greatest inventive genius. Events play out within the framework of a unique love story. Tesla’s inscrutable personality becomes clear in his motivations and sympathetic to the reader because the device of his mysterious Muse (based on his real-life description of her) allows us to enter the mystery of his solitary life. Only his thoughts and dialogue are fiction – the action is historically accurate.

Fans of historically accurate books with strong love stories (such as “Cold Mountain”) will respond to Tesla’s lifelong imaginary “Muse,” as he himself described her. Tesla’s story about the source of his inspirations was never believed during his life — this book simply takes him at his word about the driving force of his incredible inventive imagination. Even so, his gratifying relationship with her only partly explains his 86 years of complete social isolation. The ghost of his deceased father, the devout Reverend Tesla, also torments him with a plague of doubts throughout the story.

Although the book is fictionalized through Tesla’s eyes:

This story is populated with historical figures who actually played major roles in Tesla’s life. Author Mark Twain was a frequent visitor, George Westinghouse robbed him of millions, Thomas Edison portrayed him as a lunatic in an attempt to suppress his inventions, and J.P. Morgan manipulated his funding to prevent him from building his Universal Power System. Tesla was aided by John Jacob Astor, but lost that friend when Astor died on the wreck of the Titanic in 1912.

Tesla is among the 20th Century’s greatest forgotten heroes – a European by birth, and an adopted U.S. citizen who radically changed our world but suffered the worst of human ingratitude in return.

Why the time is right for this book:

Nikola Tesla’s lifelong goal was to solve the problem of how to supply free, unlimited electricity to the entire planet. He knew that universal power could end poverty forever. Today, everyone knows about the world’s energy crisis. They will be especially sympathetic with the mind that tried so hard to avert this for us, and with the fascinating eccentricities of his personality.

It is also a known fact that the U.S. Secret Service raided Tesla’s New York hotel room the day he died and confiscated all of his papers before his body was taken away. Those papers remain unaccounted for today.

IN THE MATTER OF NIKOLA TESLA: A ROMANCE OF THE MIND is available from Amazon.

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“It is a monumental task, this getting into the mind of a man as complex and extraordinary as Tesla. Anthony Flacco is up to the task. In the Matter of Nikola Tesla: A Romance of the Mind reads at times like a psychological exploration worthy of Dostoyevsky, at other times like one of John le Carre’s espionage novels, and even sometimes like Joseph Campbell’s mythical ‘hero’s journey.’”

—NY Journal of Book Reviews

“Anthony Flacco’s In the Matter of Nikola Tesla is really fascinating—especially for me as I’ve been very interested in Nikola Tesla for many years. I believe Tesla was one of the most special characters of last century. I hope that this book will soon become a film!”

—Mario Spezi, NY Times Bestselling Author, The Monster of Florence

 *****

Anthony was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, one of four brothers. Their father was an Air Force pilot and mother was a talented artist and painter.

His background as a trained stage actor with over 2,000 performances under his Actors Equity membership provides the primary basis for his critically acclaimed ability to empathize with a wide cross-section of personalities. He moved into screenwriting when he was selected for the prestigious American Film Institute fellowship in Screenwriting, and received his MFA in screenwriting there in 1990 after winning AFI’s Paramount Studios Fellowship Award for his film script, The Frog’s Legacy. He was then selected out of 2,000 entrants for the Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, and spent a year writing for the Touchstone Pictures division.

His screenwriting experience drives narrative stories that are visually compelling, whether for a movie theater or the screen of a reader’s imagination.

In 1994, his first nonfiction book, A Checklist for Murder, was acquired in auction by Dell Books as a mass market paperback and turned in solid sales.

Anthony then adapted his book into a screenplay for a two-hour television movie script and sold it to NBC Studios for a movie of the week. For the next several years, he worked as a freelance script doctor and story editor.

During that time, Anthony was hired by the Discovery Channel to write a two-hour documentary entitled Deadly Spree, and his true crime writing was also featured on a one-hour episode of The Prosecutors for Court TV.

In 2003, Anthony served as a national Judge for the Illinois Arts Council, writing individual evaluations for over 100 screenplays for their 2003 Writing Awards.

In 2005, with the publication of his nonfiction book Tiny Dancer (St. Martin’s Press) the book was selected by Reader’s Digest as their Editor’s Choice for August, 2005 — which was their 1,000th Commemorative Issue. The book has been internationally acclaimed, and the Kansas City Star named Tiny Dancer “one of the 100 Most Noteworthy Books of 2005.” In 2007, the book received Best Seller status in Italy and continues to be popular there.

Back in the U.S., his first two novels of historical fiction are from Mortalis Books at Random House. The first book, The Last Nightingale, was released in June of 2007 and was one of five nominees for “Best Original Paperback” from the International Thriller Writers Association. The second book, The Hidden Man, published in June of 2008 and created widespread interest in his historical writing within the publishing community.

In November of 2009 his historical true crime book was released by Sterling Publishing — The Road Out Of Hell: The True Story of Sanford Clark and the Wineville Murders. It won the USA NEWS 2009 Best True Crime Book of the Year.

Publish Your Nonfiction Book (Writer’s Digest Books), which Anthony co-authored with literary manager, Sharlene Martin, was also published in 2009.

He wrote Impossible Odds: The Kidnapping of Jessica Buchanan and Her Dramatic Release by SEAL Team Six published on May 14, 2013 with Atria Books/Simon and Schuster.

His historical novel, In the Matter of Nikola Tesla: A Romance of the Mind, has been published in Italy as “L’Ultimo Segreto di Tesla”,” and published in January 2013 as an e-book with Diversion Books.

He is an experienced public speaker and frequently gives seminars on crime writing, and is a featured speaker on writing for writers conferences and clubs.

For more information, see www.AnthonyFlacco.com