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An old man recounts the raucous adventure of his life through war, obsession and the 20th century in this “rapturous and melancholy new novel” (The New York Times).
An old American who lives in Brazil is writing his memoirs. Call him Oscar Progresso—or whatever else you like. He sits in a mountain garden in Niterói, overlooking the ocean. As he reminisces and writes, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case, an epic adventure unfolds. We learn that he was a World War II ace who was shot down twice, an investment banker who met with popes and presidents, and a man who was never not in love.
But that doesn’t begin to cover our narrator’s immense and fascinating journey through the 20th century. He was also the thief of the century, a murderer, and a protector of the innocent. All his life he waged a valiant, losing, one-man battle against the world’s most insidious enslaver: coffee.
The acclaimed author of Winter’s Tale and A soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin now offers “a tour de force that combines adventure, romance and an overview of the 20th century into a bittersweet narrative” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
An old man recounts the raucous adventure of his life through war, obsession and the 20th century in this “rapturous and melancholy new novel” (The New York Times).
An old American who lives in Brazil is writing his memoirs. Call him Oscar Progresso—or whatever else you like. He sits in a mountain garden in Niterói, overlooking the ocean. As he reminisces and writes, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case, an epic adventure unfolds. We learn that he was a World War II ace who was shot down twice, an investment banker who met with popes and presidents, and a man who was never not in love.
But that doesn’t begin to cover our narrator’s immense and fascinating journey through the 20th century. He was also the thief of the century, a murderer, and a protector of the innocent. All his life he waged a valiant, losing, one-man battle against the world’s most insidious enslaver: coffee.
The acclaimed author of Winter’s Tale and A soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin now offers “a tour de force that combines adventure, romance and an overview of the 20th century into a bittersweet narrative” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
About the Author-
Mark Helprin was educated at Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford and served in the Israeli Army, Israeli Air Force, and British Merchant Navy. He is the author of, among other titles, A Dove of the East and Other Stories, Refiner's Fire, Winter's Tale, and A Soldier of the Great War. He lives in Virginia.
Reviews-
April 29, 1996 Helprin's narrator writes his "memoir" as an old man, reviewing an extravagant and occasionally perilous life spanning many of the major events of the 20th century.
Starred review from April 3, 1995 His usual mixture of flamboyant fantasy and concrete detail animates Helprin's (Soldier of the Great War) latest work, a tour de force that combines adventure, romance and an overview of the 20th century into a bittersweet narrative. This ``memoir'' is being composed in humid, insect-ridden Brazil, and its pages are preserved in an antproof case. How the elderly narrator ended up there after his birth in New York's Hudson Valley, an adolescence in a Swiss lunatic asylum (he killed a man and was deemed insane), college at Harvard, a perilous stint as a fighter pilot in WWII, a career as an investment banker in Manhattan and other eventful episodes, is the burden of the convoluted, intriguing story. It's an old man's tale, plangent with remorse and regret, yet vibrant with robust memories of sexual and aerial escapades. It's also somewhat farfetched, since the narrator has waged a lifelong, maniacal crusade against coffee, an obsession whose origin is only revealed in the novel's affecting last pages. Never one to tell a lean story, Helprin indulges in dozens of riffs and digressions exploring the principles of physics, anatomy, education, morality, monetary theory, aeronautics, engineering and many other subjects. Some of these descriptions are little short of gorgeous; others are tedious. Similarly, Helprin's witty, ironic humor sometimes veers into farce (e.g., a banquet scene where bank officers are served steak and the narrator, in disgrace, must eat a turkey anus). To his credit, Helprin is endlessly inventive, and one expects his characters to behave as they do in fairy tales and fables, not in real life. Yet real life pulses so strongly in some scenes (especially the account of the events surrounding the death of the narrator's parents) that they could stand as set pieces, full and complete in their stark and immediate impact. For all of its excesses, there is enough magic in this story to keep readers actively engaged. Major ad/promo; author tour.
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Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
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