{"product_id":"paris-in-the-present-tense-9781468316681","title":"Paris in the Present Tense","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eParis in the Present Tense\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e, Mark Helprin's powerful, rapturous novel, is set in a contemporary City of Light caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e Seventy-four-year-old Jules Lacour--a maître at Paris-Sorbonne, cellist, widower, veteran of the war in Algeria, and child of the Holocaust--must find a balance between his strong obligations to the past and the attractions and beauties of life and love in the present. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life--days bright with music, family, rowing on the Seine--Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist a third his age. Against the backdrop of an exquisite and knowing vision of Paris and the way it can uniquely shape a life, he forges a denouement that is staggering in its humanity, elegance, and truth. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Mark Helprin's \u003ci\u003eParis in the Present Tense\u003c\/i\u003e is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMark Helprin\u003c\/b\u003e is the internationally acclaimed, bestselling author of \u003ci\u003eParis in the Present Tense\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWinter's Tale\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eIn Sunlight and in Shadow\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eA Soldier of the Great War\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFreddy and Fredericka\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Pacific\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eSwan Lake\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEllis Island\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eMemoir from Antproof Case\u003c\/i\u003e, and numerous other works.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Overlook Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50630413091090,"sku":"9781468316681","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_10bbb6fd-7269-4961-9172-b0223091c292.jpg?v=1732751281","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/paris-in-the-present-tense-9781468316681","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}