On a wet London morning in 1857, American engineer Chester Ludlow arrives on the muddy banks of the Isle of Dogs to witness the launch of the largest steamship ever built, the Great Eastern. Also amidst the tumultuous throng is Jack Trace, a lonely bachelor and sketch artist hoping to make his name as an illustrator and journalist in the hurly burly of Fleet Street. The two men, along with Ludlow's wife Franny, his imposing brother Otis, the bombastic entrepreneur J. Beaumol Spude, the dwarfish inventor of the Great Eastern, the creator of the modern sewer system, his adulterous wife, and a wily prostitute will all become involved with various modes of communication, with the realization of the Victorian age. They will witness and participate in the creation of the first transoceanic telegraph cable. It is the thread that will connect worlds and break apart lives.
A novel of epic interconnectiveness...Breathtaking... Griesemer's energetic plotting and prose mirror impressively the vigor of the age. The New York Times Book Review
A wonderful, ambitious book...How crammed with rich, resonant period details isSignal & Noise? Well, you can almost smell the Great Stink of 1850s-era London. Esquire
A spectacular new novel...Griesemer can stir up a terrifying storm at sea or catch the faint waves of loneliness in a sickroom. He can explain the arcane workings of a galvanometer as well as the mysterious affection between brothers. His story never slackens, drawing us through strands of nineteenth-century technology and timeless romance. Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor
A thoroughly riveting read...big, bold, rambunctious, and very rewarding. Richard Russo
Sprawling, meticulously researched...At its simplest, the book is a long, gaslit tale about an engineer's attempt to lay a transatlantic cable from Europe to America. Lurking beneath this conventional plot, though, is a grand meditatl£#
![Signal & Noise A Novel [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/6/6/9/2_293233.jpg "Signal & Noise A Novel [Paperback] xxx")