How Edison’s ‘dying breath’ story inspired a novel!
INSPIRED by Thomas Edison’s ‘dying breath’ story, US-based author Monica Bhide embarked upon a mystical journey, transcending time and space to pen her new novel The Soul Catcher.
Legend has it that Henry Ford asked Edison’s son to catch his father’s dying breath in a test tube, which is now on display at the Henry Ford Museum.
This idea that the breath of life can be captured and shared with those who need it most inspired Bhide to write her book, which is set in real, yet magical, modern-day India.
‘I researched this book for well over five years before writing it. There was so much to think about - I wrote it as a novel first, then as a collection of short stories and then scrapped it all and started again! In the end, it is a novel told in stories - like a mosaic or a puzzle that comes together,’ she says.
Bhide, who started with writing food anthologies, wrote a collection of stories called The Devil in Us in 2014. The Soul Catcher is one of the stories featured in that collection.
‘It garnered much attention. So, I decided at some point that I needed to write a novel about the lead character, Yamini,’ she says.