Synopses & Reviews
This is a book about the beauty and complexity of the human soul, about God, love, and justice, and yet you can lose yourself in it as if it were a dream. You will be transported to New York of the
Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented winters.
One night, Peter Lake orphan, master-mechanic, and master second-storey man attempts to rob a fortress-like mansion on the Upper West Side. Though he thinks the house is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between the middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl who is dying.
Because of a love that at first he cannot fully understand, Peter Lake, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven "to stop time and bring back the dead." His great struggle, in a city ever alight with its own energy and beset by winter, is a truly beautiful and extraordinary story.
A best-seller in both its hardcover and paperback editions, Winter's Tale "stretches the boundary of contemporary literature. It is a gifted writer's love affair with the language" (Newsday).
Review
"One of our most talented writers....Helprin creates tableaux of such beauty and clarity that the inner eye is stunned." Publishers Weekly
Review
"Breathtaking....Helprin is a splendid major talent...funnier and shrewder than Thomas Wolfe and much more accurate in his poetic exuberance." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Is it not astonishing that a work so rooted in fantasy, filled with narrative high jinks and comic flights, stands forth centrally as a moral discourse?...I find myself nervous...about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance." New York Times Book Review
Review
"Helprin [has a] dauntless virtuosity with language....[There is] unquestionable genius in [this] book...one cannot fail to be transfixed by the utter exuberance of Helprin's imagination." Saturday Review
Review
"A dazzling modern fairytale by a storyteller of seemingly effortless and artless grace." Joyce Carol Oates
Review
"A wild, abundant, generous book...part mad invention, and...worth the trip." Anne Tyler
Synopsis
A bestseller that takes readers on a journey to New York of the Belle Epoque, where Peter Lake attempts to rob a Manhattan mansion only to find the daughter of the house at home. Thus begins the love between the middle-aged Irishman and Beverly Penn, a young girl who is dying. This novel is "a gifted writer's love affair with the language" (Newsday).
About the Author
Mark Helprin is also the author of A Dove of the East and Other Stories, Ellis Island and Other Stories, A Soldier of the Great War, and Memoir from Antproof Case.