Mark Helprin is a man without a genre. He belongs to no literary school or movement. His books are not adventure stories or mysteries or thrillers or science fiction or fantasy or magical realism, yet elements of each of those can be found between the pages of his many novels.
Which include A Dove of the East & Other Stories, Refiners Fire, Winters Tale (a classic), A Soldier of the Great War and the marvelous trilogy Swan Lake, A City in Winter and the Veil of Snows, collected in one beautiful volume A Kingdom Far and Clear and many others.
He has been published in The New Yorker for a quarter of a century, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The National Review among many other journals and periodicals.
His honors and awards are to numerous to mention during this interview.
Paris in the Present Tense. Once again, as in Winter’s Tale, In Sunlight and in Shadow, A Kingdom Far and Clear Mark has written a book in which the city is as much a protagonist as any other character.
Jules Lacour is a Frenchman, a cellist, a holocaust survivor and a man who agonizes over the loss of his wife Jacqueline. In fact he agonizes over the deaths of almost every deceased friend or acquaintance he has encountered. The book is framed by an epigraph which states this as a kind of credo.
Jules wants to die and he wants to die for a couple of reasons. One is because of the loss of his wife, the other is part of a scheme, a scheme that at times is both poignant and downright funny. I mean laugh out loud funny. Another thing that is funny is Jules meeting with his one-time psychiatrist. (At least I think it is one time)
Jules, in his mid-seventies is in terrific physical shape. He runs, he rows in the Seine. He attracts younger women and falls in love regularly. Like many of us do.
One such paramour is Elodi, 50 years Jules’ junior and a student, Jules’ student, of the cello.
Another story line involves two semi-bumbling detectives who afford some more comedy.
The novel celebrates Paris in The Present Tense and we’re all the better for it.
Welcome Mark and thanks for joining us today.
The Avid Reader Show
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October 5, 2017
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