In Sunlight and in Shadow Audiobook By Mark Helprin cover art

In Sunlight and in Shadow

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In Sunlight and in Shadow

By: Mark Helprin
Narrated by: Sean Runnette
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Mark Helprin’s enchanting and sweeping novel asks a simple question: can love and honor conquer all?

New York in 1947 glows with postwar energy. Harry Copeland, an elite paratrooper who fought behind enemy lines in Europe, returns home to run the family business. In a single, magical encounter on the Staten Island ferry, the young singer and heiress Catherine Thomas Hale falls for him instantly but too late to prevent her engagement to a much older man. Harry and Catherine pursue one another in a romance played out in postwar America’s Broadway theaters, Long Island mansions, the offices of financiers, and the haunts of gangsters. Catherine’s choice of Harry over her longtime fiancé endangers Harry’s livelihood - and eventually threatens his life.

Entrancing in its lyricism, In Sunlight and in Shadow so powerfully draws you into New York at the dawn of the modern age that, as in a vivid dream, you will not want to leave.

About the author: Mark Helprin was educated at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Oxford. He served in the Israeli military and the British Merchant Navy. He is the acclaimed author of Winter’s Tale and numerous other works.

©2012 Mark Helprin (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Fiction Heartfelt Genre Fiction Theater Feel-Good Winter Middle East

Critic reviews

“In this prodigious, enfolding saga of exalted romance in corrupt, postwar New York, resplendent storyteller Helprin creates a supremely gifted and principled hero…Helprin’s suspenseful, many-stranded plot is unfailingly enthralling. The sumptuous settings are intoxicating. The novel’s seething indictment of mobster rule in the 1940s is bracing, and the lovers’ high-stakes predicaments are heartbreaking. Helprin’s personal articles of faith shape every scene as he expresses deep respect for soldiers, sensitivity to anti-Semitism and racism, and stalwart belief in valor and individual exceptionalism. So declarative is this philosophical tale that it can be read as Helprin’s spiritual and lyrical answer to the big, bossy, and enduring novels of Ayn Rand.” ( Booklist, starred review)
“Elegant, elegiac…A fine adult love story - not in the prurient sense, but in the sense of lovers elevated from smittenness to all the grownup problems that a relationship can bring.” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review)
“Glorious and golden, truly like reentering another world where another sensibility prevails and even the sunlight and shadow have a different weight.” ( Library Journal)
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Any additional comments?

Years ago I read Helprin’s A Soldier in the Great War and found it to be an impressive description of the stupidity of war. In Sunlight and in Shadow he jumps back to WWII from a somber post WWII present. The portions of the book that cover the war are first rate. Unfortunately his descriptions of Harry’s romance with a young singer in NYC is too sophomoric and so overwhelmingly romanticized they are difficult to listen to. The words cloy. Perhaps this is due to the bated breath or the reader; as if this love affair between a thirty something vet and Katherine (no virgin) were something on the pedestal of adolescence. There is a bit of F. Scott Fitzgerald to the scenes in the Hamptons among the well-heeled set. This is juxtaposed to the gritty business of protection rackets in NYC. The book is also interminably long due to rambling descriptions and a fondness for employing an excess of adjectives. If you can get past the saccharine romance and the ponderous verbiage there is a good story with a bit of depressing and maybe inevitable ending.

Too long and romaticized

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One of the best books I have read lately, unfortunately most on Audible is trash, designed to stop you from critical thinking.

What a beautiful book

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What did you like best about In Sunlight and in Shadow? What did you like least?

I love all Helprin books. They're truly transporting. His stories are always vivid, dialog fantastic, and he puts you "right there." Have just started this one -- am deep enough into it to be engaged.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He's sonorous, ponderous, pompous and DULL! It's hard enough staying with any Helprin novel but this narrator will put you out as sure as an anvil dropped on your head. In fact, sometimes I'd prefer the anvil.

Do you think In Sunlight and in Shadow needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No.

Great Helprin; Narrator wrecks it

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Why is it so absorbing to red a book set in a very familiar setting? Mark Halprin takes you into many different New York City venues, from the Staten Island ferry to Grand Central Terminal and beyond for his tale of intrigue and romance. His leading lady and her smitten beau struggle to find the time to live out their passion while she launches a career on Broadway and he, having survived WW II as a paratrooper, is determined to avenge the damage inflicted by the Mafia on his family business. A bit long on descriptions and details but well worth the time.

An absprbomg read

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The story is so good that I often wanted to skip the beautiful prose, the perfectly crafted sentences, the lovely and delicate insights. But I didn’t, and am the richer for it.

Helprin does it again

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