Reviews

“Constant brilliance . . . . rarely less than breathtaking, these eleven stories reflect the kind of aesthetic tension — the quivering polarities between passion and reason — that instantly signals the presence of art. . . . Every single story sings with purity, vibrates with light and dedicated honesty of vision.” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer)

“Stories beyond compare. . . . Helprin is uncanny, a man who knows too many places and too many times at 33. . . . [his] imagination should be protected by some intellectual equivalent of the National Park Service.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)

“His eye is precise and his spirit is compassionate, and when we finish the stories, we have been rewarded, once more, with that astonishing catalyst of art.” (Chicago Tribune)

“Such an ambitious reach is almost unheard of in our short fiction . . . the rapid deduction and communication of a personal metaphysics— the aim of writers like Poe, Kafka, and Mann . . . a lean arc of voltage conveyed through tangible conductors to instant effect.” (Reynolds Price, Front Page, The New York Times Book Review)