Every grateful reader who was exposed to Mark Helprin's recent collection, Ellis Island and Other Stories, knew that a fresh voice and vision was on the march. Although the author had brought out two previous books that signaled the gathering of forces of a major talent, it was Ellis Island that brought him to the attention of his first real audience. His combination of the realistic and fantastic intertwining of experience, guided by compassion and a prose style as clear and shining as a northern star, gave hope on two levels: it opened up possibilities beyond realism for a transportation of life that could no longer be contained by the literal, and it gave almost therapeutic faith to those disillusioned and wearied by much serious fiction. Helprin was that rare thing, a first-rate technician who was also a sincere standard-bearer for a new dawn in humankind's endless effort...