Signal and Noise - John Griesemer

This is the epic, page-turning story of the laying of the first transatlantic cable, and the men and women who are caught up in its monumental tide. It is also a novel about the collision of worlds seen and unseen, the present and the future, the living and the dead, the real and the imagined. On a dark London morning in 1857, Chester Ludlow, an American engineer, arrives on the muddy banks of the Isle of Dogs to witness the launch of the largest steamship ever built, Isambard Kingdom Brunel's The Great Eastern. Propelled by fierce ambition, Ludlow abandons his fragile wife, Franny, in Maine. The couple are still grieving for their daughter, who died, aged only four, in a tragic accident. And Franny finds some solace in the company of Chester's troubled brother, who introduces her to the mysteries of spiritualism. Chester, Otis and Franny must confront disaster and despair before they can discover any kind of peace and the certain knowledge that mysterious forces move the universe.