Winter's Tale - Mark Helprin

A breathtaking novel by the author of A Soldier of the Great War, this is a book about the beauty and complexity of the human soul, about God, love, and justice. nA #1 New York Times Bestseller: Mark Helprin's masterpiece transports you to New York of the Belle Epoque, to a city clarified by a siege of unprecedented snows... n nOne winter night, Peter Lake--master mechanic and second-story man--attempts to rob a fortresslike mansion on the Upper West Side.

Though he thinks it is empty, the daughter of the house is home. Thus begins the affair between a middle-aged Irish burglar and Beverly Penn, a young girl dying of consumption. It is a love so powerful that Peter, a simple and uneducated man, will be driven to stop time and bring back the dead.

His great struggle is one of the most beautiful and extraordinary stories of American literature. n nUtterly extraordinary . .

. A piercing sense of the beautiful arising from narrative and emotional fantasy is everywhere alive in the novel . .

. Not for some time have I read a work as funny, thoughtful, passionate or large-souled . .

. I find myself nervous, to a degree I don't recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately displaying its brilliance.--Benjamin DeMott, New York Times Book Review