RaveAssociated PressThe late Edmund Morris, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer known for his willingness to brush aside the norms of his genre if it suited his narrative ends, does it again ... Morris’ narrative takes a highly unorthodox turn by describing the inventor’s later years in the opening chapters. He then proceeds backward, decade by decade, culminating with Edison’s younger years when many of his most familiar and consequential inventions in electricity and sound replication occurred ... Morris’ willingness to breach the organizational norms of biography may not surprise readers familiar with his even bolder previous work ... Morris’ decision to begin his book with lesser known details about the aging Edison’s inventions and exploits makes for a rousing start ... Morris’ genre-bending biography of Edison is a briskly written, fact-packed work that, like its subject, is also highly illuminating.
