It’s the birthday of Mark Helprin (b. 1947), who has written seven novels, several short story collections, and a few children’s books illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg (see my post of 7/18/19) and who considers himself genre-wise to be a bit of a maverick but who has been interviewed by the Paris Review, so anyway he ain’t a hack. Of Helprin, Time Magazine has said, “He lights his own way.” Lofty stuff.

Helprin was born in Manhattan and raised in the Hudson River valley and the British West Indies. His father was the president of London Films and his mother the Broadway star Eleanor Lynn. He attended a shi-shi private school, The Scarborough School, and went on to Harvard for undergrad and grad studies and did post-grad work at Oxford, Princeton, and Columbia. (Note the use of the Oxford comma in the previous sentence and throughout these posts. You’re welcome.)

Helprin’s first novel, Refiner’s Fire: The Life and Adventures of Marshall Pearl, a Foundling, appeared in 1977, and around that same time Helprin became an Israeli citizen, serving in both the Israeli infantry and air force—but first took an oath at the American Embassy to support the U.S. Constitution. (Before *that*, he was against Vietnam and dodged the draft, something he now regrets.) His next novel, Winter’s Tale (1983), is considered one of the greatest works of American fiction in the latter part of the 20th century; the novel is a fantastical love story set in and to a mythical New York.

Helprin continued writing great bestselling novels (A Soldier of the Great War, 1991, Freddy and Fredericka, a 2005 satire of Charles and Diana) and being politically unexpected. He feels his politics stayed the same but the Democratic party moved left, making him Republican, and he was a speechwriter for Bob Dole as well as Dole’s Adviser on Defense and Foreign Relations. Asked how the Republican party has changed from Dole to Trump, Helprin said, “It’s like going from Earth to Mars. Donald Trump has a disordered mind and simply grabs anything that floats by.” (See the interview here.) Helprin is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, and other political organizations. His latest novel is Paris in the Present Tense (2017).

Helprin has a wife and two daughters and lives on a farm in Virginia where he does a lot of the work himself, which is almost as lofty as lighting his own way.

 

Have a splendid yet thoughtfully informed Thursday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.