“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? It is indeed. . . . 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.” (Front Page, The New York Times Book Review)

“Helprin’s book is breathtaking. . . . Helprin is splendid, a major talent. . . funnier and shrewder than Thomas Wolfe and much more accurate in his poetic exuberance. . . Though there are suggestions of John Barth in its metaphysical, and John Irving in its anecdotal, discursiveness. Mr. Dooley is there in its sawdust wit, and Paul Goodman’s Empire City in its winning and burdensome generosity . . . and, more than anything else, there is Walt Whitman and his lyrical city vision . . . [but] it is not quite like anything else.” (Los Angeles Times Book Review)