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Elegy in Blue
Mark Helprin, the #1
New York Times
bestselling author of
The Oceans and the Stars
,
Winter’s Tale
, and
A Soldier of the Great War,
returns with an unforgettable tale of love, loss, and remembrance set in Brooklyn.High in a subsidized studio apartment, the unnamed 82-year-old narrator of Elegy in Blue looks out across the rooftops of Brooklyn all the way to the sea. His distinguished career on Wall Street is in ruins, his mansion in Brooklyn Heights has been burned to the ground, and most of all, his father, his son, and his wife—the stunningly beautiful and equally kind Clare—have been taken from him, one by one, over the decades, by war and an act of violence.Now his “allegiance is to his ghosts.” He’s almost lost to memory, reflection, and a purposeful letting go of life. But when violence threatens to destroy another family, he takes drastic action in hope of restoring a portion of justice to the world. Can he fashion his life into an elegy, one that heals a broken heart and relieves the sting of death?Told in an exceptional literary voice, mixing comedy and tragedy, Elegy in Blue is a hymn to New York, memory, loyalty, and love.
243 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 28, 2026
About the author
Mark Helprin
43 books1,794 followersMark Helprin belongs to no literary school, movement, tendency, or trend. As many have observed and as Time Magazine has phrased it, “He lights his own way.” His three collections of short stories (A Dove of the East and Other Stories, Ellis Island and Other Stories, and The Pacific and Other Stories), six novels (Refiner's Fire, Winter's Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir From Antproof Case, Freddy and Fredericka and, In Sunlight and In Shadow), and three children's books (Swan Lake, A City in Winter, and The Veil of Snows, all illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg), speak eloquently for themselves and are remarkable throughout for the sustained beauty and power of their language.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 111 reviews
March 9, 2026
The story of an unnamed man reflecting on his life, his losses, his grief turned into action to try to make things right, a hero of sorts depending on how you view his response of a horrific event with another. An elegy of course to his beloved Brooklyn , but in many ways an ode to his loved ones. He loses everything, his loved ones , his home, and his heartbreak is palpable . While it may have felt a bit over the top at times when he chooses to respond to the evil around him, this was so very relevant as I look around our country now and what is happening . A commentary on the top 1 % vs the have nots, on those capable of evil towards their fellow man - an antisemitic attack, drug cartels and more. Yet, there is also the beauty reflected in the walks he took with his beloved wife, the beauty of art for its sake and not its monetary value and the beauty of the love between the man and his wife. So much packed into this short book which is beautifully written.
I received a copy of this book from Abrams Press through NetGalley.
I received a copy of this book from Abrams Press through NetGalley.
August 4, 2026
“They are coming to kill me. Not the people in the first half of this story (they tried and failed), but those of the second half — an entirely different set, who really surprised me. This is, however, of little moment, because I no longer live in the power of the world. I escaped that: as it is said, gradually at first, then suddenly.”
Well, that got my attention. They're the first words in Elegy in Blue. As an opening it's dramatic, exciting, and ominous, teasing us by hinting at but withholding information. There's something else at work here, though: “gradually at first, then suddenly.” Those are the words a character in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises uses to describe how he went bankrupt.
Do I sound pedantic? Very well, then, I contain multitudes. Which I can say with a clear conscience because Helprin has tacitly given me permission: The narrator’s startling description of his imminent demise is followed not by the what’s and why’s of his situation but with allusions to James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, Hamlet, (yes) Walt Whitman, Wile E. Coyote, and many others. The reader can devote as much or as little thought to what the references mean as he likes.
I really enjoyed Elegy in Blue, for which I'm glad after being so disappointed in The Ocean and the Stars. It’s smart, sometimes playful sometimes serious, exciting, touching. The story itself is utterly implausible, meandering, and fun. There's gunplay, a drug cartel, arson, puns, philosophical musings, meditations on beauty and Brooklyn. It all plays out in the memories and reflections of an unnamed man in his 80s as he awaits (with surprising equanimity, I have to say) his presumably violent death. He's gained and lost a fortune, found and lost love (“lost” would more accurately be rendered as taken from him), and finds himself called upon to be brave and altruistic in a corrupt world.
It’s also funny as hell in places, even as it raises serious questions about how do we respond to evil in the world, what do we owe one another, and how can we love in the shadow of our mortality and, more, the mortality of those we love.
“There is no rhapsody without elegy, and there is no elegy without rhapsody.” (The line — called, in rhetoric, a chiasmus, if you’re interested — comes, meaningfully, immediately after a reference to George Gershwin, composer of “Rhapsody in Blue".) The sentence appears early in the novel. At the time I didn't think much about it but in hindsight it turns out to encapsulate the very heart of what Helprin is doing: Rhapsody is ecstatic celebration, as of love and art. Elegy is lamentation for the dead: a lost wife and son, parents, maybe youth. The two rest in equal measure in Elegy in Blue, and the story moves back and forth between them. Yin and yang, Eros and Thanatos. Life itself.
Helprin expands on the conceit later in the chapter when he speaks of being “schooled in the shades of blue. The blues of the Atlantic, the harbor, and the sky changing minute by minute, hour by our, day by day, year by year. Give them their due and they will tell the story of those you have lost, and unite you with them once again. I see the decades passing in blue, sounding like music, serving as signs, masterfully overriding despair.” Wistful, poetic, and the key to the book's title.
***
“The story I’m about to tell, of love in a time of violence, is complicated, with many diversions,” the narrator tells us. (Another allusion, this time to Garcia Marquez.) His life is filled with violence, shaped by violence. His father was killed in World War Two. He himself served in Viet Nam, where he was badly wounded and endured “a six-hour field surgery with no anaesthesia.” He became rich almost accidentally, and met the love of his life, also accidentally. They had a beloved son who was killed in battle in Iraq. One day he and his wife, as was their habit, went for a long walk through the streets of Brooklyn where they witnessed an act of terrorism that prompted the 80-something year old man to go into full action hero mode. He disarmed and killed the terrorist. (The New Yorker calls him the “One-Percent Vigilante”). This impetuous act of bravery, wise or not, resulted in his wife’s death, and then shortly thereafter to the loss of his fortune and home.
This is all “the first half of this story” the narrator mentions at the beginning -- his childhood, his early success in business, meeting the woman who would become his wife, the birth and death of his son. In short, everything that has led him to this moment. The second half has him called once again be a warrior, this time trying to save a man and his family from a violent cartel. It’s all completely impossible stuff, of course, a fantastic daydream, but that doesn’t matter. The narrator is likable, sympathetic, even admirable. We want to know what happens to him.
“Love in a time of violence”: he thinks a lot about both, this old man. His familiarity with war, for example, has complicated how he thinks about violence. When his son tells him his intention to fight in Iraq he tries to dissuade him by sharing his own experience. “There was no glamor [in battle] unless you think glamor is vomiting blood as dying men all around you are screaming their last like banshees until suddenly they go quiet.” His son went anyway -- as the narrator knew he would because that's what he had done himself when young -- and was killed in action. Breaking the narrator's heart.
Violence is a terrible thing, he knows that, but he also believes there are times when it’s necessary: “Saints and pacifists abstain and even give their lives to show others the righteous path. But where were the saints and pacifists to protect Javier and his family from the cartel? Where were they in the Holocaust, and in holocausts? Where are they every day all over the world as unspeakable evil inflicts inexpressible suffering upon untold numbers?” And of course it was violence that he used to stop the terrorist (an act of heroism for which the Fates punish him) and that he will have to use again to fight the cartel.
But violence is only half of the equation. On the other, non-violent side, is love. He sometimes loses himself in calling to mind the life he shared with his wife and son. Memories of transcendent joy come to him: “I was walking with my infant son held in my arms when for the first time he felt the wind. He was both shocked and inquisitive, and his expression said, what is this thing that insistently meets and surrounds me and that I cannot see?.” It was the child’s “first lesson in theology.”
Love too is complicated. A long life has taught him an important theological lesson. “Why,” he asks — as most people eventually do — “does God make such unbreakable bonds that in the end are broken nevertheless?” The things we have are only lent to us, he knows. Things and people. “When your child dies before you do, you learn that the cruelest thing is that no one will be left to keep his memory sufficiently alive. So you try to live as long as you can so as to think, to dream, to picture him, and by these actions keep him in the little light that is left before you and he and everyone else will vanish into eternal silence.” Love has a duty of remembrance.
Balancing these serious moments and reflections are numerous eruptions of humor. Some of it is dark and sardonic. The deranged young terrorist, for example, whom the narrator prevents from slaughtering children, has a name that might have inspired by the ghost of Joseph Heller: Werner Warner Weenis. (His equally despicable parents are “the kind of people who make you want to close your eyes as hard as you can, grimace, hold your breath, and wish they didn’t exist.” There’s nothing funny about their reaction to the death of their psychopathic son.)
Other humorous bits are lighter. The successful firm the narrator had founded when younger and ran with integrity and empathy is now run by greedy, careless people with names like "Angier Francis Dipthahng, Bradford Pear, the fetching and outrageous heiress Sassy Biddle (who wanted to “give back”—by working in an investment bank), Simon Yachtsman (who assured everyone he wasn’t Jewish, or it would have been Yotsmann), Hodgkins Chalmers and his cousin Chalmers.” They are “much like Jews," he remarks, because he is Jewish himself, "except that they wear plaid pants with mauve blazers, and they don’t move their jaws when they speak.”
There are also allusive puns galore throughout the book. When his house is burned down the narrator invokes the Bard: “an exploding Molotov cocktail is not strained. Unlike the gentle rain from heaven, it falleth upon the place beneath with a tinkle and a whoosh—you can almost hear the orange and yellow flash—and then explodeth in a fireball.”
Age, too, gives him fodder for humor: “The older I’ve become, the stranger I’ve become. Indeed, I’ve become the stranger. Even though I’m weird I’m still, somehow, invisible. People look through me, especially women under sixty. When they pass me on the street, I appreciate their beauty, but they think I’m a parking meter.” (A good thing, too, because his “ testosterone deficit is probably greater than the national debt.”)
Elegy in Blue is a thoroughly enjoyable, moving, thought-provoking, amusing, and even exciting novel. I didn't hesitate for a second in giving it five stars.
***
One last thing. In a very real sense, Elegy in Blue is a rhapsodic love letter to Brooklyn. Scattered throughout the book (unobtrusively, in my opinion) are passages like this: Across a prairie of tenement rooftops littered with planters laden with geraniums blood-red in July sun, you could see a riot of blue canvas chairs, smoke rising from barbecues in summer and chimneys in winter, and, on a summer evening, dozens of couples and families out in the cooler air, drinks in hand, home from work, delighted and at rest. Those are the gentle things, the sometimes silent and patient things. Glorious as they may be when brushed with sunlight, they abide in memory as if seen from the dark. You could smell the perfume of sunscreen, gin, and flowers; and the history of fragrant chimney smoke as convection currents carried up the lingering scents of 150 years. When there was laughter, you could hear it. And we were lucky to have, on our block, a cellist, who played Bach.
My thanks to Harry N.Abrams Publishers and Edelweis+ for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
Well, that got my attention. They're the first words in Elegy in Blue. As an opening it's dramatic, exciting, and ominous, teasing us by hinting at but withholding information. There's something else at work here, though: “gradually at first, then suddenly.” Those are the words a character in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises uses to describe how he went bankrupt.
Do I sound pedantic? Very well, then, I contain multitudes. Which I can say with a clear conscience because Helprin has tacitly given me permission: The narrator’s startling description of his imminent demise is followed not by the what’s and why’s of his situation but with allusions to James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, Hamlet, (yes) Walt Whitman, Wile E. Coyote, and many others. The reader can devote as much or as little thought to what the references mean as he likes.
I really enjoyed Elegy in Blue, for which I'm glad after being so disappointed in The Ocean and the Stars. It’s smart, sometimes playful sometimes serious, exciting, touching. The story itself is utterly implausible, meandering, and fun. There's gunplay, a drug cartel, arson, puns, philosophical musings, meditations on beauty and Brooklyn. It all plays out in the memories and reflections of an unnamed man in his 80s as he awaits (with surprising equanimity, I have to say) his presumably violent death. He's gained and lost a fortune, found and lost love (“lost” would more accurately be rendered as taken from him), and finds himself called upon to be brave and altruistic in a corrupt world.
It’s also funny as hell in places, even as it raises serious questions about how do we respond to evil in the world, what do we owe one another, and how can we love in the shadow of our mortality and, more, the mortality of those we love.
“There is no rhapsody without elegy, and there is no elegy without rhapsody.” (The line — called, in rhetoric, a chiasmus, if you’re interested — comes, meaningfully, immediately after a reference to George Gershwin, composer of “Rhapsody in Blue".) The sentence appears early in the novel. At the time I didn't think much about it but in hindsight it turns out to encapsulate the very heart of what Helprin is doing: Rhapsody is ecstatic celebration, as of love and art. Elegy is lamentation for the dead: a lost wife and son, parents, maybe youth. The two rest in equal measure in Elegy in Blue, and the story moves back and forth between them. Yin and yang, Eros and Thanatos. Life itself.
Helprin expands on the conceit later in the chapter when he speaks of being “schooled in the shades of blue. The blues of the Atlantic, the harbor, and the sky changing minute by minute, hour by our, day by day, year by year. Give them their due and they will tell the story of those you have lost, and unite you with them once again. I see the decades passing in blue, sounding like music, serving as signs, masterfully overriding despair.” Wistful, poetic, and the key to the book's title.
***
“The story I’m about to tell, of love in a time of violence, is complicated, with many diversions,” the narrator tells us. (Another allusion, this time to Garcia Marquez.) His life is filled with violence, shaped by violence. His father was killed in World War Two. He himself served in Viet Nam, where he was badly wounded and endured “a six-hour field surgery with no anaesthesia.” He became rich almost accidentally, and met the love of his life, also accidentally. They had a beloved son who was killed in battle in Iraq. One day he and his wife, as was their habit, went for a long walk through the streets of Brooklyn where they witnessed an act of terrorism that prompted the 80-something year old man to go into full action hero mode. He disarmed and killed the terrorist. (The New Yorker calls him the “One-Percent Vigilante”). This impetuous act of bravery, wise or not, resulted in his wife’s death, and then shortly thereafter to the loss of his fortune and home.
This is all “the first half of this story” the narrator mentions at the beginning -- his childhood, his early success in business, meeting the woman who would become his wife, the birth and death of his son. In short, everything that has led him to this moment. The second half has him called once again be a warrior, this time trying to save a man and his family from a violent cartel. It’s all completely impossible stuff, of course, a fantastic daydream, but that doesn’t matter. The narrator is likable, sympathetic, even admirable. We want to know what happens to him.
“Love in a time of violence”: he thinks a lot about both, this old man. His familiarity with war, for example, has complicated how he thinks about violence. When his son tells him his intention to fight in Iraq he tries to dissuade him by sharing his own experience. “There was no glamor [in battle] unless you think glamor is vomiting blood as dying men all around you are screaming their last like banshees until suddenly they go quiet.” His son went anyway -- as the narrator knew he would because that's what he had done himself when young -- and was killed in action. Breaking the narrator's heart.
Violence is a terrible thing, he knows that, but he also believes there are times when it’s necessary: “Saints and pacifists abstain and even give their lives to show others the righteous path. But where were the saints and pacifists to protect Javier and his family from the cartel? Where were they in the Holocaust, and in holocausts? Where are they every day all over the world as unspeakable evil inflicts inexpressible suffering upon untold numbers?” And of course it was violence that he used to stop the terrorist (an act of heroism for which the Fates punish him) and that he will have to use again to fight the cartel.
But violence is only half of the equation. On the other, non-violent side, is love. He sometimes loses himself in calling to mind the life he shared with his wife and son. Memories of transcendent joy come to him: “I was walking with my infant son held in my arms when for the first time he felt the wind. He was both shocked and inquisitive, and his expression said, what is this thing that insistently meets and surrounds me and that I cannot see?.” It was the child’s “first lesson in theology.”
Love too is complicated. A long life has taught him an important theological lesson. “Why,” he asks — as most people eventually do — “does God make such unbreakable bonds that in the end are broken nevertheless?” The things we have are only lent to us, he knows. Things and people. “When your child dies before you do, you learn that the cruelest thing is that no one will be left to keep his memory sufficiently alive. So you try to live as long as you can so as to think, to dream, to picture him, and by these actions keep him in the little light that is left before you and he and everyone else will vanish into eternal silence.” Love has a duty of remembrance.
Balancing these serious moments and reflections are numerous eruptions of humor. Some of it is dark and sardonic. The deranged young terrorist, for example, whom the narrator prevents from slaughtering children, has a name that might have inspired by the ghost of Joseph Heller: Werner Warner Weenis. (His equally despicable parents are “the kind of people who make you want to close your eyes as hard as you can, grimace, hold your breath, and wish they didn’t exist.” There’s nothing funny about their reaction to the death of their psychopathic son.)
Other humorous bits are lighter. The successful firm the narrator had founded when younger and ran with integrity and empathy is now run by greedy, careless people with names like "Angier Francis Dipthahng, Bradford Pear, the fetching and outrageous heiress Sassy Biddle (who wanted to “give back”—by working in an investment bank), Simon Yachtsman (who assured everyone he wasn’t Jewish, or it would have been Yotsmann), Hodgkins Chalmers and his cousin Chalmers.” They are “much like Jews," he remarks, because he is Jewish himself, "except that they wear plaid pants with mauve blazers, and they don’t move their jaws when they speak.”
There are also allusive puns galore throughout the book. When his house is burned down the narrator invokes the Bard: “an exploding Molotov cocktail is not strained. Unlike the gentle rain from heaven, it falleth upon the place beneath with a tinkle and a whoosh—you can almost hear the orange and yellow flash—and then explodeth in a fireball.”
Age, too, gives him fodder for humor: “The older I’ve become, the stranger I’ve become. Indeed, I’ve become the stranger. Even though I’m weird I’m still, somehow, invisible. People look through me, especially women under sixty. When they pass me on the street, I appreciate their beauty, but they think I’m a parking meter.” (A good thing, too, because his “ testosterone deficit is probably greater than the national debt.”)
Elegy in Blue is a thoroughly enjoyable, moving, thought-provoking, amusing, and even exciting novel. I didn't hesitate for a second in giving it five stars.
***
One last thing. In a very real sense, Elegy in Blue is a rhapsodic love letter to Brooklyn. Scattered throughout the book (unobtrusively, in my opinion) are passages like this: Across a prairie of tenement rooftops littered with planters laden with geraniums blood-red in July sun, you could see a riot of blue canvas chairs, smoke rising from barbecues in summer and chimneys in winter, and, on a summer evening, dozens of couples and families out in the cooler air, drinks in hand, home from work, delighted and at rest. Those are the gentle things, the sometimes silent and patient things. Glorious as they may be when brushed with sunlight, they abide in memory as if seen from the dark. You could smell the perfume of sunscreen, gin, and flowers; and the history of fragrant chimney smoke as convection currents carried up the lingering scents of 150 years. When there was laughter, you could hear it. And we were lucky to have, on our block, a cellist, who played Bach.
My thanks to Harry N.Abrams Publishers and Edelweis+ for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
August 3, 2026
“The story I’m about to tell, of love in a time of violence, is complicated, with many diversions. As it soon will end in my death, I have nothing to lose and can say what I wish.”
Clearly.
Tragedy? Love story? Ghost story? Thriller? Action?
The answer is: all of the above.
An unnamed narrator, now 82 years old, invites readers to join him on a journey through a life filled with contradictions, where, as he describes it, there is “rhapsody and elegy, tragedy and comedy.”
First, the title. The image of the cobalt blue sky and sea of Brooklyn beautifully captures the poetic and lyrical quality of Mark Helprin’s writing.
Second, his prose blends grit and humor, unexpected plot turns, complex character dynamics, and reflections on love, loss, and the meaning of life into a relatively brief 237 pages.
And finally, for me, the beauty of the writing was not quite enough to carry the story.
From the beginning, readers are led to believe that someone is coming for our narrator—that danger is approaching and his life may be ending. The question is why, and whether this threat is the reason he has chosen to tell his story.
What follows is a series of adventures—some fascinating, some puzzling, and some difficult to fully embrace because they often stretched the limits of believability.
Perhaps that is the point.
Helprin seems to be asking readers to accept the improbable as a reflection of life itself: the unexpected turns, the impossible moments, and the experiences that shape who we become.
For readers who enjoy literary fiction with elements of mystery, action, romance, and philosophical reflection, this may be an appealing journey. There is no denying the author’s talent with language.
But ultimately, this story did not fully connect with me.
Please consider other reviews.
Clearly.
Tragedy? Love story? Ghost story? Thriller? Action?
The answer is: all of the above.
An unnamed narrator, now 82 years old, invites readers to join him on a journey through a life filled with contradictions, where, as he describes it, there is “rhapsody and elegy, tragedy and comedy.”
First, the title. The image of the cobalt blue sky and sea of Brooklyn beautifully captures the poetic and lyrical quality of Mark Helprin’s writing.
Second, his prose blends grit and humor, unexpected plot turns, complex character dynamics, and reflections on love, loss, and the meaning of life into a relatively brief 237 pages.
And finally, for me, the beauty of the writing was not quite enough to carry the story.
From the beginning, readers are led to believe that someone is coming for our narrator—that danger is approaching and his life may be ending. The question is why, and whether this threat is the reason he has chosen to tell his story.
What follows is a series of adventures—some fascinating, some puzzling, and some difficult to fully embrace because they often stretched the limits of believability.
Perhaps that is the point.
Helprin seems to be asking readers to accept the improbable as a reflection of life itself: the unexpected turns, the impossible moments, and the experiences that shape who we become.
For readers who enjoy literary fiction with elements of mystery, action, romance, and philosophical reflection, this may be an appealing journey. There is no denying the author’s talent with language.
But ultimately, this story did not fully connect with me.
Please consider other reviews.
Did Not Finish
January 15, 2026Not the right time to read about rich dudes.
April 28, 2026
Well…Apparently I’ve never read Mark Helprin before, but I will certainly be looking for his works now!
Being born and raised in Brooklyn during my formative years, and until I was married and starting my own family, this brought back many memories… so close to my heart. It is a beautiful tribute to Brooklyn and NYC, as well as Long Island. But the beginning…well, it made me laugh!!
And then made me stop and think… And then made me realize that this is not just a book… but a poem. A retelling. An ultimate story of love… and life… and heartbreak… and, in the end… living to tell about it.
“Brooklyn is my last stop, the king of the five boroughs. With a softness and mystery Manhattan can only envy, Queens cannot conceive, The Bronx cannot imagine, and Staten Island… well, Staten Island should be part of New Jersey. Brooklyn is embraced by the ocean, the harbor, the East river and land stretching a hundred miles to the Atlantic. It is not infinite, but more than the rest of the city, it contains infinitude’s and these are to be found mainly straight up above, aloft, and all in blue. The blue of the sky above Brooklyn is a rhapsody. As in the Gershwin tune, there is no rhapsody without elegy, and there is no elegy without rhapsody. Though they tend to alternate, they coincide. Just as a broken heart still beats. Rhapsody and elegy. Tragedy and comedy. New York is like that. Always has been. There’s something about the city of islands and rivers that braids together two such opposites, until they are inextricable. And then you love them both and …. They break your heart. But in breaking it they resurrect it as well. And show you what you love enough to die for.”
The narrator is absolutely PHENOMENAL! And I couldn’t imagine anyone else telling me this story, now that I’ve heard it!
It is about an old man. One who has been through hell and back… and then some. And now, at the end of his life, he has to make a choice… one that years ago would have NEVER crossed his mind. But time and experience have changed him… as well as love, and loss, and war, and pettiness… and… so much more.
So now, this old man who served in the war (in his prime), who built a life and family for himself, and the love of his life, Clare, well… now he reflects on all that has happened in his years. The good. The bad. The ugly. The mean. And… so much more…
And, well… I only wish there were more people in the world like this unnamed man!
I laughed. I cried. I felt ashamed. I felt assaulted. I was proud. And, I was scared… all in one book. That my friends is the BEST type of book there is!
#ElegyInBlue by @MarkHelprin and narrated stunningly by @AdamGrupper.
All the stars for me for this one!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫💫💫💫💫🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟✨✨✨✨✨
*** This one releases today, so please keep your eyes 👀 open for it!! 4/28/26! ***
Thanks so much to #NetGalley, @RBMedia and @RecordedBooks for an ALC of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
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Being born and raised in Brooklyn during my formative years, and until I was married and starting my own family, this brought back many memories… so close to my heart. It is a beautiful tribute to Brooklyn and NYC, as well as Long Island. But the beginning…well, it made me laugh!!
And then made me stop and think… And then made me realize that this is not just a book… but a poem. A retelling. An ultimate story of love… and life… and heartbreak… and, in the end… living to tell about it.
“Brooklyn is my last stop, the king of the five boroughs. With a softness and mystery Manhattan can only envy, Queens cannot conceive, The Bronx cannot imagine, and Staten Island… well, Staten Island should be part of New Jersey. Brooklyn is embraced by the ocean, the harbor, the East river and land stretching a hundred miles to the Atlantic. It is not infinite, but more than the rest of the city, it contains infinitude’s and these are to be found mainly straight up above, aloft, and all in blue. The blue of the sky above Brooklyn is a rhapsody. As in the Gershwin tune, there is no rhapsody without elegy, and there is no elegy without rhapsody. Though they tend to alternate, they coincide. Just as a broken heart still beats. Rhapsody and elegy. Tragedy and comedy. New York is like that. Always has been. There’s something about the city of islands and rivers that braids together two such opposites, until they are inextricable. And then you love them both and …. They break your heart. But in breaking it they resurrect it as well. And show you what you love enough to die for.”
The narrator is absolutely PHENOMENAL! And I couldn’t imagine anyone else telling me this story, now that I’ve heard it!
It is about an old man. One who has been through hell and back… and then some. And now, at the end of his life, he has to make a choice… one that years ago would have NEVER crossed his mind. But time and experience have changed him… as well as love, and loss, and war, and pettiness… and… so much more.
So now, this old man who served in the war (in his prime), who built a life and family for himself, and the love of his life, Clare, well… now he reflects on all that has happened in his years. The good. The bad. The ugly. The mean. And… so much more…
And, well… I only wish there were more people in the world like this unnamed man!
I laughed. I cried. I felt ashamed. I felt assaulted. I was proud. And, I was scared… all in one book. That my friends is the BEST type of book there is!
#ElegyInBlue by @MarkHelprin and narrated stunningly by @AdamGrupper.
All the stars for me for this one!!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫💫💫💫💫🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟✨✨✨✨✨
*** This one releases today, so please keep your eyes 👀 open for it!! 4/28/26! ***
Thanks so much to #NetGalley, @RBMedia and @RecordedBooks for an ALC of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review.
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July 21, 2026
I don't get it. Helprin just overwrites everything. This book is more flowery than the Rose Bowl Parade. It's about violence and loss and people willing to stand up to evil when others won't, but everything happened so suddenly that there wasn't time to explore any nuance. So it sped along, but also took forever to get there. I can't really explain it, but I just didn't like this. And also, some of the names in this are RIDICULOUS, and pull me right out of the text so I can roll my eyes really quickly before diving back in. Woof.
April 19, 2026
Mark Helprin returns to the setting of A Winter’s Tale, here focused on Brooklyn. This master of the love story recounts in flashbacks the life of a man in his late 70s who has lost everything except for his moral compass. There is a lot of remembering Brooklyn-when-he-was-a-boy, with its corner candy shops (now called bodegas), scraping by with his widowed mother, and doing his best in school to earn a scholarship. Despite having lost a son, it is his wife whom he most grieves. Most of the book is about the two of them: the horrific way in which he lost her, his plunge into despair, and his decision to save someone else, consequences be damned.
More than anything, it deals with the moral quandary of standing by or taking action when we see wrongdoing. It's a sad and thoughtful elegy - a novel of thoughtful reflection and a lament for the dead - nostalgic and captivating.
This well-narrated audiobook will be prized by those who like "A Winter's Tale," historical fiction, sad love stories, and heroes with a strong sense of fairness.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @RBMedia, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook #ElegyinBlue for review purposes. Publication date: 28 April 2026.
More than anything, it deals with the moral quandary of standing by or taking action when we see wrongdoing. It's a sad and thoughtful elegy - a novel of thoughtful reflection and a lament for the dead - nostalgic and captivating.
This well-narrated audiobook will be prized by those who like "A Winter's Tale," historical fiction, sad love stories, and heroes with a strong sense of fairness.
My thanks to the author, publisher, @RBMedia, and #NetGalley for early access to the audiobook #ElegyinBlue for review purposes. Publication date: 28 April 2026.
May 14, 2026
The writing is beautifully graceful and erudite. The narrator, a retired investment banker in his 80s, is interesting and eloquent. One's reaction to this novel will hinge on the reader's feelings about the two acts of shocking violence that bookend the story. The book will definitely provide the thoughtful person with much food for thought.
June 9, 2026
Would have been better as a short story.
June 24, 2026
This novel is narrated by an 80 year old man living in Brooklyn, and it is an ode to his deceased wife. It is also an ode to the City of New York – with all its grandeur, opportunity, magnificence, danger and dirt. Mark Helprin has written some wonderful novels, eg. Soldier of the Great War. Because of the style of writing of this one, I had to continually remind myself that it was fiction and not a memoir. The novel deals with unnecessary death of family members – through violence and war – and the loss of wealth and possessions. It shows deep, abiding love for a lost spouse. To say the least these are not light themes. But – this is not a dark book because interspersed with the seriousness is incredibly well written humor. This novel did not pull me in as much as I had hoped, but I remain a fan of Mark Helprin.
May 14, 2026
Best living writer
The sentences and paragraphs. The plot. The deep thoughts. The history. The asides. The humor. How long did it take him to write this? How did he even think of it? I believe with all my heart that Mark Helprin is the best writer alive today — and it is a shame that the art of writing (and reading) is receding in this age. You need to read this book! Then place it on your bookshelf with Dickens, Hemingway, Mark Twain, and the rest of the greats.
The sentences and paragraphs. The plot. The deep thoughts. The history. The asides. The humor. How long did it take him to write this? How did he even think of it? I believe with all my heart that Mark Helprin is the best writer alive today — and it is a shame that the art of writing (and reading) is receding in this age. You need to read this book! Then place it on your bookshelf with Dickens, Hemingway, Mark Twain, and the rest of the greats.
June 27, 2026
The plot involves the narrator killing one person in defense of others and then killing 6 gang members in premeditation to fend off an anticipated kidnapping. Not really my cup of tea. There is a lot of reflection on the ethics and psychology of this. And of course there is the marvelous language and meditative descriptions, which is what fans of the author come for. Not one of my favorites, but good nonetheless.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 8, 2026
4.5
I didn't love our nameless narrator as much as I did Jules Lacour in Paris in the Present Tense. I also didn't entirely believe the complicated, unlikely 'virtue in violent self defense' plot devices as I did in that other, better book of his, but the writing was so gorgeous and the last paragraph so stunning and optimistic that I forgave it its faults.
I didn't love our nameless narrator as much as I did Jules Lacour in Paris in the Present Tense. I also didn't entirely believe the complicated, unlikely 'virtue in violent self defense' plot devices as I did in that other, better book of his, but the writing was so gorgeous and the last paragraph so stunning and optimistic that I forgave it its faults.
June 4, 2026
Didn't know if I could slog through the first quarter or third, but I did. And then it got SOOOO good. And then it took a dive. And then it got sooooo good. And then it ended. Quite quirky and confusing in many parts. Loved the way this unnamed 70yo loved his wife and his child. Loved what he said about what he would have done differently in his life - this man who committed a justifiable murder and then a bunch of murders that were, well, also kind of justifiable for a completely different reason. Because of the truly amazing parts, I'll read more of Helprin. Yep.
May 29, 2026
He used to be my favorite author.
Really.
This is the worst book he's ever written.
I gave it a 2 because I reserve 1 for books I quit before completion. Here, I forced myself to read through to the end.
I expect down the road for him to write an article admitting that this book was prepared by AI. Free AI, not the paid level.
Really.
This is the worst book he's ever written.
I gave it a 2 because I reserve 1 for books I quit before completion. Here, I forced myself to read through to the end.
I expect down the road for him to write an article admitting that this book was prepared by AI. Free AI, not the paid level.
June 5, 2026
A generous four stars. It's probably really three-and-a-half, but I'm still processing this one, and I expect it'll go up to four after I've let it roll around my brain pan for awhile.
Elegy in Blue is typical Helprin: an elderly man reflects on his life and his lost loved ones as he plots an act of final justice before the close. Yeah, that's the plot of four or five other Helprin novels, too, so in one sense there's nothing really unique here. Typical Helprin sentimental purple prose mixed with absurdist comedy.
In this novel, Helprin really leans into the theme of achieving justice where the law feels toothless. (See also In Sunlight and in Shadow for more on that theme, but that book takes way too long to get to the point.) In committing a heroic act of vigilante justice (think Daniel Penny to name one current analog), the unnamed protagonist of Elegy in Blue loses everything. Helprin addresses how social media and cancel culture turn people against those willing to act when circumstances require it.
The question "Would you do it again knowing how things turned out?" seems to hover over the narrative. Our protagonist admits he wouldn't, but recognizes that he would be haunted by guilt if he hadn't acted.
Accepting his fate and the judgment of society, the narrator resigns to living a quiet life waiting for the end.
And then another opportunity to achieve justice outside the law presents itself. This time it's not hinging on a split-second decision, but requires premeditation and careful planning. When given time and space to consider, how does he respond? And why? And how has each act worked to separate himself from humanity?
There's not really a clean resolution. At the end of the novel readers might still not be entirely convinced of the rightness of our protagonist's actions. (Though I admit to admiration.)
This is Helprin's shortest novel, clocking in at just under 250 pages in the hardcover edition. That leanness works to its favor, though it still takes awhile for the plot to emerge. (Arguably, it takes until rather late in the book to really see where he's going with the tale.)
It feels closest in tone to Memoir from Antproof Case, (possibly my second or third favorite Helprin novel) though whereas that book was mostly comic until the late revelation of a tragedy that drives the novel to its close, this book begins with tragedy, and then the tone turns comic until near the end. This feels unsettling at first, but also reflects the narrator's resignation to the absurdities visited upon him.
I'm still processing, but I suspect that I will eventually rank this among the top half of Helprin's novels. It's better than either In Sunlight and in Shadow or Paris in the Present Tense, two of Helprin's more recent novels to which it bears some resemblance in plot.
Elegy in Blue is typical Helprin: an elderly man reflects on his life and his lost loved ones as he plots an act of final justice before the close. Yeah, that's the plot of four or five other Helprin novels, too, so in one sense there's nothing really unique here. Typical Helprin sentimental purple prose mixed with absurdist comedy.
In this novel, Helprin really leans into the theme of achieving justice where the law feels toothless. (See also In Sunlight and in Shadow for more on that theme, but that book takes way too long to get to the point.) In committing a heroic act of vigilante justice (think Daniel Penny to name one current analog), the unnamed protagonist of Elegy in Blue loses everything. Helprin addresses how social media and cancel culture turn people against those willing to act when circumstances require it.
The question "Would you do it again knowing how things turned out?" seems to hover over the narrative. Our protagonist admits he wouldn't, but recognizes that he would be haunted by guilt if he hadn't acted.
Accepting his fate and the judgment of society, the narrator resigns to living a quiet life waiting for the end.
And then another opportunity to achieve justice outside the law presents itself. This time it's not hinging on a split-second decision, but requires premeditation and careful planning. When given time and space to consider, how does he respond? And why? And how has each act worked to separate himself from humanity?
There's not really a clean resolution. At the end of the novel readers might still not be entirely convinced of the rightness of our protagonist's actions. (Though I admit to admiration.)
This is Helprin's shortest novel, clocking in at just under 250 pages in the hardcover edition. That leanness works to its favor, though it still takes awhile for the plot to emerge. (Arguably, it takes until rather late in the book to really see where he's going with the tale.)
It feels closest in tone to Memoir from Antproof Case, (possibly my second or third favorite Helprin novel) though whereas that book was mostly comic until the late revelation of a tragedy that drives the novel to its close, this book begins with tragedy, and then the tone turns comic until near the end. This feels unsettling at first, but also reflects the narrator's resignation to the absurdities visited upon him.
I'm still processing, but I suspect that I will eventually rank this among the top half of Helprin's novels. It's better than either In Sunlight and in Shadow or Paris in the Present Tense, two of Helprin's more recent novels to which it bears some resemblance in plot.
June 2, 2026
The story is kind of emotionally manipulative with cliche elements right out of pulp fiction and action movies. But Helprin is a Nabokov-class (the highest level) prose stylist, incapable of writing a bad sentence, so he elevates it.
It also contains, in a largely tragic-romantic tale, some brilliant humor reminiscent of Joseph Heller. But this sometimes feels a little out of place, as if Helprin couldn't decide on a proper tone. I love serious books with comic elements, and Helprin usually carries this off, but this time it feels forced, inserted unnaturally.
I'm trying to judge it against all books, not just unfairly against his earlier work, but feels a little disappointing
It also contains, in a largely tragic-romantic tale, some brilliant humor reminiscent of Joseph Heller. But this sometimes feels a little out of place, as if Helprin couldn't decide on a proper tone. I love serious books with comic elements, and Helprin usually carries this off, but this time it feels forced, inserted unnaturally.
I'm trying to judge it against all books, not just unfairly against his earlier work, but feels a little disappointing
May 8, 2026
I enjoyed this book set in Brooklyn. Our narrator is 82 and trying to come to terms with the death of his wife. This is difficult due to the way in which she died. We live in a crazy world!
He shares memories of his life from childhood to present. There's humor in this lament. I thought the prose was wonderful and look forward to more from Mr. Helprin.
He shares memories of his life from childhood to present. There's humor in this lament. I thought the prose was wonderful and look forward to more from Mr. Helprin.
Read
May 18, 2026RTC. . .pondering. . .
July 10, 2026
Elegy in Blue
by Mark Helprin
Grateful for his life, his time with Clare,
His precious son, our doomed investment banker
Narrates his love of Brooklyn’s timeless air,
Waiting for his killers without rancour.
A life not less well lived for scars of death,
Not yet bereft by flames that stripped it bare
Of art and wealth and love, of all but breath,
Can summon murder, offered like a prayer.
Lyrical as ever, Helprin’s prose,
Refulgent, playful, rich and unashamed
(Like its narrator), positively glows,
Painting Brooklyn by one window framed.
This elegy (perhaps it’s Mark’s swan song?)
Is graceful, wise, immersive, not too long!
by Mark Helprin
Grateful for his life, his time with Clare,
His precious son, our doomed investment banker
Narrates his love of Brooklyn’s timeless air,
Waiting for his killers without rancour.
A life not less well lived for scars of death,
Not yet bereft by flames that stripped it bare
Of art and wealth and love, of all but breath,
Can summon murder, offered like a prayer.
Lyrical as ever, Helprin’s prose,
Refulgent, playful, rich and unashamed
(Like its narrator), positively glows,
Painting Brooklyn by one window framed.
This elegy (perhaps it’s Mark’s swan song?)
Is graceful, wise, immersive, not too long!
May 30, 2026
almost totally mud
My friend recommended this book so I really tried. I found it very difficult to read . Sentences were overly long and obtuse, forgetting the beginning before the end and at the end wondering what was the point. The author seems an egotist, impressed with himself. Later my friend texted me apologizing and saying he found it to be awful after two previous books he had liked.
My friend recommended this book so I really tried. I found it very difficult to read . Sentences were overly long and obtuse, forgetting the beginning before the end and at the end wondering what was the point. The author seems an egotist, impressed with himself. Later my friend texted me apologizing and saying he found it to be awful after two previous books he had liked.
July 1, 2026
The author is a true wordsmith and extremely original writer. It is difficult to categorize the work; the closest I can come is a literary revenge with some Zen leanings. The language paints pictures and soars. The plot could only come from this author who takes the reader on flights of fancy that he pulls into a cohesive whole.
Bravo
Bravo
May 8, 2026
Another excellent book by Mark Helprin whose writings you can just get lost in. A good balanced pace and wit throughout the book. If you ever get the chance, go to YouTube and watch one of his interviews. He is quite the character and it explains so much about his story lines and characters. I was surprised to see him complete a new book this quickly after The Oceans and the Stars (2023). Helprin tells a story of loss (or losses) which are so true to the heart. There are so many ethical dilemmas within this story and they would be great discussion points for a book club.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:
- love in a time of violence
- Brooklyn is my last stop, the king of the five boroughs, with a softness and mystery Manhattan can only envy, Queens cannot conceive, the Bronx cannot imagine, and Staten Island … Well, Staten Island should be a part of New Jersey.
- Cobalt blue, the French chemist Louis-Jacques Thénard’s gift to the painter’s art, was unknown until 1802.
- no matter how pure and how invisible it might be, air will mar the perfection of light
- Figuring that, like me, she was new to the sourball profession, I asked how long she had been tending the machine. And she said, “Thirty years.”
- When your child dies before you do, you learn that the cruelest thing is that no one will be left to keep his memory sufficiently alive. So you try to live as long as you can so as to think, to dream, to picture him, and by these actions keep him in the little light that is left before you and he and everyone else will vanish into eternal silence. Other than to remember and pray, I knew no other way.
- Death is something to avoid only when alive. After that, it’s a moot point, and hath no sting.
- while watching the ocean (once referred to by one of my schoolmates as “that big outdoor place where they have all the fish”)
- he proceeded to beat me up, although he refrained from stabbing me or throwing me in front of a moving train. In those days, people were more polite.
- there’s a lid for every pot
- After a moment of silence, she said, “Take the short way.”
- “What about words,” I asked. “I don’t do words.”
- “I built this room as a means of remembrance, but I did so in vain. Had we not been rendered childless by war just as war had rendered me fatherless, the problem would have been my son’s. That’s what one does. You pass the hot potato to sons and daughters, and they do the same, and in time all memories are dissolved, the blow is softened to almost nothing, and it doesn’t matter anymore.
- You do them not to feel good about them or yourself or to win praise or recognition, but simply because they must be done
- Often the strongest colors fade the fastest
- When I gave my son as much as I could to armor him for the future, and make him fleet, I believe I knew what I was doing—not that I could have done otherwise: it was more or less written in, indelibly. Though I understood that my enjoyment in doing so may have been at least partially an artifact of compulsion and necessity, I loved it nonetheless.
- His twelve seconds of sound pierced the heavens for anyone who listened, even if, when the seconds had passed, a listener was again “blind.” This is what you can see in flashes of beauty striking the eye when by some miracle they present themselves with the magnetic force and flow of music.
- in messages beyond the mind of man yet so clear in their meaning that the heart instantly apprehends.
- The aura of which I speak, which protects and sustains me, is indeed like the flame above a wick. The flame is transcendent, because the part you see and the part you feel are immaterial, not matter but energy. The wick is undeniably material, but despite its materiality, it has a magic all its own, and is to the flame what the body is to the soul. The flame, ineffable, hardly needs talking about, but the wick can bear a great deal of description.
- I live in the world, and the world even at its most horrible and dark is yet full of light,
- Dissatisfaction is the prod that keeps us moving past satisfaction, the handmaiden of death.
- But what if I told you that danger is my business?”
- “and we’ll get the prescription back.” “I can get another one.” “Then you’ll have two.”
- They speak of “cycles of violence,” as if it’s impossible to determine which party has initiated the action or broken the status quo. This relieves them of the burden of judgement. And, to intervene when, for example, someone is being killed, should they have to put themselves or their reputations at risk, their compassion for victims takes a sudden and self-serving holiday. Nice work, if you can get it.
- In my life, I have seen three tidal waves of war: one for my father, one for me, and one for my son. But for Clare it was the surf, and for Javier it is also the surf.
- I learned that the surf can easily take you. It can tumble you head over heels and smash you against the sand, or keep you under ‘til you can hardly breathe, or pull you out to sea in a rip. I learned to deal with it then, and I believed I could deal with it now.
- “there’s a holiness and unseen power in rejecting violence that is greater than violence itself. I know. I speak from the tranquility of the grave.”
- those who kill are doomed to become their own casualties.
- He may deem it perfectly just, as it may be, and He may forgive, as He often does, but He cannot forget.
- What’s your age?” “Twenty.” After a while, he said, “Really?” “Yes.” “Okay.” Then, after a while, “You should see an endocrinologist.”
- Externally, the rich are indeed different from the poor. Though they both confront the winter, one shivers while the other has a warm coat.
- I could always stand down, and my doubts weighed against my intentions as strongly as any inclination I’ve ever had.
- The Lord says, “Vengeance is mine.” As always, He’s correct. Vengeance is His. But guess what? Sometimes He lends it out.
- Sorrow is something you can’t escape, and if you could it wouldn’t be sorrow.
Here are some of my favorite lines from the book:
- love in a time of violence
- Brooklyn is my last stop, the king of the five boroughs, with a softness and mystery Manhattan can only envy, Queens cannot conceive, the Bronx cannot imagine, and Staten Island … Well, Staten Island should be a part of New Jersey.
- Cobalt blue, the French chemist Louis-Jacques Thénard’s gift to the painter’s art, was unknown until 1802.
- no matter how pure and how invisible it might be, air will mar the perfection of light
- Figuring that, like me, she was new to the sourball profession, I asked how long she had been tending the machine. And she said, “Thirty years.”
- When your child dies before you do, you learn that the cruelest thing is that no one will be left to keep his memory sufficiently alive. So you try to live as long as you can so as to think, to dream, to picture him, and by these actions keep him in the little light that is left before you and he and everyone else will vanish into eternal silence. Other than to remember and pray, I knew no other way.
- Death is something to avoid only when alive. After that, it’s a moot point, and hath no sting.
- while watching the ocean (once referred to by one of my schoolmates as “that big outdoor place where they have all the fish”)
- he proceeded to beat me up, although he refrained from stabbing me or throwing me in front of a moving train. In those days, people were more polite.
- there’s a lid for every pot
- After a moment of silence, she said, “Take the short way.”
- “What about words,” I asked. “I don’t do words.”
- “I built this room as a means of remembrance, but I did so in vain. Had we not been rendered childless by war just as war had rendered me fatherless, the problem would have been my son’s. That’s what one does. You pass the hot potato to sons and daughters, and they do the same, and in time all memories are dissolved, the blow is softened to almost nothing, and it doesn’t matter anymore.
- You do them not to feel good about them or yourself or to win praise or recognition, but simply because they must be done
- Often the strongest colors fade the fastest
- When I gave my son as much as I could to armor him for the future, and make him fleet, I believe I knew what I was doing—not that I could have done otherwise: it was more or less written in, indelibly. Though I understood that my enjoyment in doing so may have been at least partially an artifact of compulsion and necessity, I loved it nonetheless.
- His twelve seconds of sound pierced the heavens for anyone who listened, even if, when the seconds had passed, a listener was again “blind.” This is what you can see in flashes of beauty striking the eye when by some miracle they present themselves with the magnetic force and flow of music.
- in messages beyond the mind of man yet so clear in their meaning that the heart instantly apprehends.
- The aura of which I speak, which protects and sustains me, is indeed like the flame above a wick. The flame is transcendent, because the part you see and the part you feel are immaterial, not matter but energy. The wick is undeniably material, but despite its materiality, it has a magic all its own, and is to the flame what the body is to the soul. The flame, ineffable, hardly needs talking about, but the wick can bear a great deal of description.
- I live in the world, and the world even at its most horrible and dark is yet full of light,
- Dissatisfaction is the prod that keeps us moving past satisfaction, the handmaiden of death.
- But what if I told you that danger is my business?”
- “and we’ll get the prescription back.” “I can get another one.” “Then you’ll have two.”
- They speak of “cycles of violence,” as if it’s impossible to determine which party has initiated the action or broken the status quo. This relieves them of the burden of judgement. And, to intervene when, for example, someone is being killed, should they have to put themselves or their reputations at risk, their compassion for victims takes a sudden and self-serving holiday. Nice work, if you can get it.
- In my life, I have seen three tidal waves of war: one for my father, one for me, and one for my son. But for Clare it was the surf, and for Javier it is also the surf.
- I learned that the surf can easily take you. It can tumble you head over heels and smash you against the sand, or keep you under ‘til you can hardly breathe, or pull you out to sea in a rip. I learned to deal with it then, and I believed I could deal with it now.
- “there’s a holiness and unseen power in rejecting violence that is greater than violence itself. I know. I speak from the tranquility of the grave.”
- those who kill are doomed to become their own casualties.
- He may deem it perfectly just, as it may be, and He may forgive, as He often does, but He cannot forget.
- What’s your age?” “Twenty.” After a while, he said, “Really?” “Yes.” “Okay.” Then, after a while, “You should see an endocrinologist.”
- Externally, the rich are indeed different from the poor. Though they both confront the winter, one shivers while the other has a warm coat.
- I could always stand down, and my doubts weighed against my intentions as strongly as any inclination I’ve ever had.
- The Lord says, “Vengeance is mine.” As always, He’s correct. Vengeance is His. But guess what? Sometimes He lends it out.
- Sorrow is something you can’t escape, and if you could it wouldn’t be sorrow.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I’ll just start out by stating this is the most convoluted book I have ever read, it is one of the most beautifully written,, it is one of the best love story I have ever read, it is one of the saddest books I have ever read, it is akin to reading a thesaurus why is it there: to just add words, it made me inferior in my literature prowess, it made me reminisce about my loves and losses, it made me angry with the narrator’s action at the end: it was too much—now is the time to halt vigilante. What star: my range is 1-5 so I need to give it three stars although that, too, leaves me sad because it is such an expressive book. Thanks to the author Mark Helprin, NetGalley, and Abram’s Press for an eARC of this book; this is my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Mark Helprin's writing feels as if it comes from inside me rather than from an outside source. It comes with an old-world elegance that I've never spoken or written in, with sentence construction I've never used. How does he do that, and do others feel that way?
His literary chops, his humor and farce (the antagonist in this book is named Werner Warner Weenis, from the Weenis family!), his syncopated timeframes, his obsessions. In this book, as in some of his others, there is a theme of fighting the good fight to save someone else, to sacrifice one's own life to do so.
In Elegy in Blue an octogenarian man tells the story of his life. The elegy is obviously for New York City, specifically Brooklyn, which, Manhattanite that I am, I don't know that well, but Helprin's romantic view makes this a place for everybody. There is certainly nothing saccharine about his romantic vision—anything but. It is as if those passages are written by a pulsating heart:
The driving plot could not be more timely: cancel culture. I loathe it as much as Helprin does. The protagonist, never named, is vilified in one of those herd movements of condemnation that sometimes make me want to go live on a mountaintop, and at first, the protagonist does his version of that—further complicating his situation.
The unreasoned, unexamined snap decisions that make it so easy for rash actions exist on all sides of politics and society, and in this case a 1 percenter who cares nothing for status, is the focus of public rage. And he proceeds to confront it, first, in the kind of belly-laugh-inducing farce that makes me love him: He goes from Keystone Kops to Laurel & Hardy to Helprin's harebrained heroes who don't fit into any category and evoke in me spontaneous ululations of love. And then he burrows into the murky philosophical ethics of doing something horrible, with no authority to do so, but doing it because what it prevents is equally horrible. And as the reader, you remain balanced or straddling (depending on your pain tolerance) on Occam's Razor, getting sliced with no place to run . . . at least as long as we occupy our bodies.
And the whole thing is seasoned with perfectly understated spiritual or philosophical understanding:
Or
Or
After talking about the things one teaches one's child:
Or
By the end of the story, the elegy in blue extends to the entire blue planet we share. I loved this book and I love our fragile blue planet.
His literary chops, his humor and farce (the antagonist in this book is named Werner Warner Weenis, from the Weenis family!), his syncopated timeframes, his obsessions. In this book, as in some of his others, there is a theme of fighting the good fight to save someone else, to sacrifice one's own life to do so.
In Elegy in Blue an octogenarian man tells the story of his life. The elegy is obviously for New York City, specifically Brooklyn, which, Manhattanite that I am, I don't know that well, but Helprin's romantic view makes this a place for everybody. There is certainly nothing saccharine about his romantic vision—anything but. It is as if those passages are written by a pulsating heart:
Can the forgotten work and love of countless millions—of bakers and miners and soldiers and dressmakers—adequately be conveyed in a single passage or a single phrase? Yes, because the power of a phrase can be gathered from the work of hands, the suffering of souls, the rhythms of days and nights, and even the cool rising of an off-white, pearl-gleaming moon. There is no worth of a phrase without such antecedents, no lightning in it without the power that rolls through all things. For, with that, the phrase or form of any art, though a tiny atom, when split can let loose worlds as bright as a thousand suns. (page # NA)But the most romantic and subtle elegy is for the protagonist's wife, Clare, and this love pervades the whole story.
The driving plot could not be more timely: cancel culture. I loathe it as much as Helprin does. The protagonist, never named, is vilified in one of those herd movements of condemnation that sometimes make me want to go live on a mountaintop, and at first, the protagonist does his version of that—further complicating his situation.
The unreasoned, unexamined snap decisions that make it so easy for rash actions exist on all sides of politics and society, and in this case a 1 percenter who cares nothing for status, is the focus of public rage. And he proceeds to confront it, first, in the kind of belly-laugh-inducing farce that makes me love him: He goes from Keystone Kops to Laurel & Hardy to Helprin's harebrained heroes who don't fit into any category and evoke in me spontaneous ululations of love. And then he burrows into the murky philosophical ethics of doing something horrible, with no authority to do so, but doing it because what it prevents is equally horrible. And as the reader, you remain balanced or straddling (depending on your pain tolerance) on Occam's Razor, getting sliced with no place to run . . . at least as long as we occupy our bodies.
And the whole thing is seasoned with perfectly understated spiritual or philosophical understanding:
. . . mitzvot, or, more generally, good deeds. You do them not to feel good about them or yourself or to win praise or recognition, but simply because they must be done, and if you don't do them, you are to be condemned. Contrary to what so many people believe, doing good deeds doesn't elevate you one whit above zero, it merely brings you back from below, or perhaps, keeps you from sinking. I was no villain, no hero, but the world has great difficulty in not placing everyone into one or another of those categories. And if you just want to be left alone, you're villainized for not joining the march of public sentiment.
(page # NA)
Or
Strangely enough, in the midst of my fear I found comfort as never before, because I thought, this is what I really am, always was, knew that eventually I would become, and never wanted to admit.
But as soon as I had given up and found peace, something did turn up. (page # NA)
Or
After talking about the things one teaches one's child:
The satisfaction comes from being subordinate to a plan of great beauty. (page # NA)
Or
I understood and accepted that I would never be happy, and that instead of pursuing happiness I would try to see what was holy in things, and that this would take great effort and it would be daunting, as holiness is a window that gives out into what lies beyond all destinations. (page # NA)
By the end of the story, the elegy in blue extends to the entire blue planet we share. I loved this book and I love our fragile blue planet.
May 29, 2026
Mark Helprin is one of my top five favorite authors of all time, and ELEGY IN BLUE reminds me exactly why, even as it challenged me in ways his other books haven't. He has this singular ability to focus my attention on the mundane and miraculous minutiae that make up the substance of day-to-day life, and then take my breath away with something shocking. Like in real life, I might suspect something jarring is about to happen, but when it does, it's more devastating than I imagine.
The book grapples with the banality of evil, its ridiculousness even, and the way victims slip beneath the waves of time. It explores what it means to look at life when it's closer to over than begun, and finds holiness in curiosity, wonder, and reverence at age. Trust the experience of the aged, it seems to say.
And then, in the same breath, it's hilarious. The tension between dread and humor is one of the book's great balancing acts. It's absurd in the most unlikely and rather English way, almost giving P. G. Wodehouse, and yet it kept a lump in my chest from start to finish.
The unnamed narrator is elderly, a once-successful investment banker who has fallen from great heights and lost nearly everything but his dignity. What would happen if Job were real, living in modern-day New York? That's the level of drama this book presents. Bad things happen to good people, former wealth is not restored, and in fact death is at the protagonist's doorstep. But the wonder and complexity and vastness are still present. He has been to the top of the mountain, and he isn't afraid to break a few rules according to his conscience on the way down.
The narrator tells us: "The Lord says, 'Vengeance is mine.' As always, He's correct. Vengeance is His. But guess what? Sometimes He lends it out." In this story, unlike in Job, God doesn't appear so directly.
But one thing Helprin is always going to do is provoke thought. He is a philosopher, and at times he becomes almost quantum in his prose, suggestive of realities layered beneath realities. "In the discerning eyes of God, the past abides."
The book meditates on duality, on rigidity and flexibility, on diversity of experience and perspective. It asks: "How many innocents have gone to their deaths just so people can boast of clean hands? Maybe you would go like a lamb to the slaughter with your eyes closed. But you wouldn't allow this for your loved ones."
When I had my first baby in my arms for the first time, it struck me that I am actually capable of murder to protect her. My first and primary emotion was fear. Helprin understands this about us. This book's unnamed protagonist is introspective and assertive in equal measure, a perfect yin and yang of energy that propels the story forward even in its slower moments.
My one gentle critique: during a time of overt racism and xenophobia in our society, I found myself yearning for more curiosity about the systems of awfulness. The cartel figures, the weakness of local authority to guarantee safety for all residents, the people caught in between. I wanted Helprin to explore what drives individuals into these structures, to turn that brilliant philosophical lens on the sociology inside the machinery. The violence struck me in a way it hasn't in his other work, and I think the story would have been richer for that exploration.
Still, if you love language that makes you stop and reread a sentence three times just to feel it again, if you want a book that will make you think and ache and laugh in unexpected places, ELEGY IN BLUE delivers. It wasn't the book that made me fall in love with Helprin all those years ago, but it's the book of a master looking back at life with hard-won wisdom.
The book grapples with the banality of evil, its ridiculousness even, and the way victims slip beneath the waves of time. It explores what it means to look at life when it's closer to over than begun, and finds holiness in curiosity, wonder, and reverence at age. Trust the experience of the aged, it seems to say.
And then, in the same breath, it's hilarious. The tension between dread and humor is one of the book's great balancing acts. It's absurd in the most unlikely and rather English way, almost giving P. G. Wodehouse, and yet it kept a lump in my chest from start to finish.
The unnamed narrator is elderly, a once-successful investment banker who has fallen from great heights and lost nearly everything but his dignity. What would happen if Job were real, living in modern-day New York? That's the level of drama this book presents. Bad things happen to good people, former wealth is not restored, and in fact death is at the protagonist's doorstep. But the wonder and complexity and vastness are still present. He has been to the top of the mountain, and he isn't afraid to break a few rules according to his conscience on the way down.
The narrator tells us: "The Lord says, 'Vengeance is mine.' As always, He's correct. Vengeance is His. But guess what? Sometimes He lends it out." In this story, unlike in Job, God doesn't appear so directly.
But one thing Helprin is always going to do is provoke thought. He is a philosopher, and at times he becomes almost quantum in his prose, suggestive of realities layered beneath realities. "In the discerning eyes of God, the past abides."
The book meditates on duality, on rigidity and flexibility, on diversity of experience and perspective. It asks: "How many innocents have gone to their deaths just so people can boast of clean hands? Maybe you would go like a lamb to the slaughter with your eyes closed. But you wouldn't allow this for your loved ones."
When I had my first baby in my arms for the first time, it struck me that I am actually capable of murder to protect her. My first and primary emotion was fear. Helprin understands this about us. This book's unnamed protagonist is introspective and assertive in equal measure, a perfect yin and yang of energy that propels the story forward even in its slower moments.
My one gentle critique: during a time of overt racism and xenophobia in our society, I found myself yearning for more curiosity about the systems of awfulness. The cartel figures, the weakness of local authority to guarantee safety for all residents, the people caught in between. I wanted Helprin to explore what drives individuals into these structures, to turn that brilliant philosophical lens on the sociology inside the machinery. The violence struck me in a way it hasn't in his other work, and I think the story would have been richer for that exploration.
Still, if you love language that makes you stop and reread a sentence three times just to feel it again, if you want a book that will make you think and ache and laugh in unexpected places, ELEGY IN BLUE delivers. It wasn't the book that made me fall in love with Helprin all those years ago, but it's the book of a master looking back at life with hard-won wisdom.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The story I’m about to tell, of love in a time of violence, is complicated, with many diversions. As it soon will end in my death, I have nothing to lose and can say what I wish. from Elegy in Blue
The narrator is eighty-two years old. He had a life of prosperity and the luck to have found his soul mate. He inherited valuable art work. He and his wife enjoyed daily walks across Brooklyn to the ocean. But one day on his walk he instinctively interfered with an attack on Hasidic schoolchildren. The outcome was his wife’s death and a reputation as the 1% Vigilante, the deceased’s family suing him for everything he had and someone burning down his home.
He accepts his new impoverished life. He can’t accept the loss of his wife. He waits for—expectantly– his own demise. With nothing to lose, he plans and executes a horrendous act. It could be considered justice as it was committed to protect the vulnerable. It could be considered a violent crime of the worst kind.
I have enjoyed Helprin’s work from A Soldier of the Great War to The Ocean and the Stars, but this story upset me. I can’t accept the protagonist’s actions.
Yes, the writing is beautiful, the main character weaves a love song to the city, and his love story heartbreaking. Yes, he is motivated by concern and fights evil. His actions will result in his death. But his choices disturbs me. It turns my stomach.
How do we react to a violent world where evil corrupts those who should protect us? How should we spend our waning days? What sacrifices are worthy? Job accepted his losses and all was restored because he trusted his god. The narrator in this book has no such faith, not in a god or in human justice. He takes up his arms and, like the soldier he was, attacks the evil ones.
This is a book sure to foment debate and discussion.
Thanks to Abrams Press for a free book through NetGalley.
The narrator is eighty-two years old. He had a life of prosperity and the luck to have found his soul mate. He inherited valuable art work. He and his wife enjoyed daily walks across Brooklyn to the ocean. But one day on his walk he instinctively interfered with an attack on Hasidic schoolchildren. The outcome was his wife’s death and a reputation as the 1% Vigilante, the deceased’s family suing him for everything he had and someone burning down his home.
He accepts his new impoverished life. He can’t accept the loss of his wife. He waits for—expectantly– his own demise. With nothing to lose, he plans and executes a horrendous act. It could be considered justice as it was committed to protect the vulnerable. It could be considered a violent crime of the worst kind.
I have enjoyed Helprin’s work from A Soldier of the Great War to The Ocean and the Stars, but this story upset me. I can’t accept the protagonist’s actions.
Yes, the writing is beautiful, the main character weaves a love song to the city, and his love story heartbreaking. Yes, he is motivated by concern and fights evil. His actions will result in his death. But his choices disturbs me. It turns my stomach.
How do we react to a violent world where evil corrupts those who should protect us? How should we spend our waning days? What sacrifices are worthy? Job accepted his losses and all was restored because he trusted his god. The narrator in this book has no such faith, not in a god or in human justice. He takes up his arms and, like the soldier he was, attacks the evil ones.
This is a book sure to foment debate and discussion.
Thanks to Abrams Press for a free book through NetGalley.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Elegy in Blue by Mark Helprin is a highly recommended, introspective, literary novel set in Brooklyn where the unnamed 82-year-old narrator recalls events and experiences in his life, including great loves, and losses.
From his small Brooklyn apartment he recalls his past, including his beloved wife Clare, son Charles, career on Wall Street, childhood, recently burned down mansion, destroyed art work, and the various shades of the color blue surrounding him. As he remembers the past, and everything that was taken from him after a sacrificial act of heroism, he also knows his end is near.
In Elegy in Blue, Helprin presents a beautifully written, literary, fictional memoir that encompasses both tragedy and a comedy. As this is an old man's inner voice reflecting on events in his life, the pace is slow and deliberate and not in a linear timeline. At times there are exquisitely written descriptive or contemplative passages, even as the narrator is acknowledging his upcoming death. It can also be depressing and bittersweet as a man’ reflects on memories. After a good deed seemingly devastates the end of his days, he, again takes action to help another family.
Because it is the story of a life, the narrator is portrayed as a fully realized individual with strengths and weaknesses. The narrator is both retrospective and thoughtful about his life and current actions. It is also his tribute to Brooklyn and New York. Keep in mind that this is a dense novel for the limited page count.
Elegy in Blue is a wonderful choice for those who appreciate literary novels written as a memoir. Thanks to Abrams Press for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2026/0...
From his small Brooklyn apartment he recalls his past, including his beloved wife Clare, son Charles, career on Wall Street, childhood, recently burned down mansion, destroyed art work, and the various shades of the color blue surrounding him. As he remembers the past, and everything that was taken from him after a sacrificial act of heroism, he also knows his end is near.
In Elegy in Blue, Helprin presents a beautifully written, literary, fictional memoir that encompasses both tragedy and a comedy. As this is an old man's inner voice reflecting on events in his life, the pace is slow and deliberate and not in a linear timeline. At times there are exquisitely written descriptive or contemplative passages, even as the narrator is acknowledging his upcoming death. It can also be depressing and bittersweet as a man’ reflects on memories. After a good deed seemingly devastates the end of his days, he, again takes action to help another family.
Because it is the story of a life, the narrator is portrayed as a fully realized individual with strengths and weaknesses. The narrator is both retrospective and thoughtful about his life and current actions. It is also his tribute to Brooklyn and New York. Keep in mind that this is a dense novel for the limited page count.
Elegy in Blue is a wonderful choice for those who appreciate literary novels written as a memoir. Thanks to Abrams Press for providing me with an advance reader's copy via NetGalley. My review is voluntary and expresses my honest opinion.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2026/0...
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Such mixed emotions! Mark Helprin is obviously well-known, and his books have been lauded for years. I own a few of his books but had never read him before. Much of Elegy in Blue is beautiful--exquisite, even. Yet much of it is eye-roll worthy. So many stupid names and so much childish humor! I am younger than both the main character and the author, but I am a New Yorker, and the love for Brooklyn, for Westchester County, and even for Coney Island that shines forth from every page resonated with me, as did the main character’s impatience with so much of modern life. The story has a mythic quality; the protagonist rises from poverty to great wealth and renown and then crashes back to pauperism and disgrace--not due to his own hubris but to the evil banality of social media and slander. ("What's Twitter?" the main character asks, at least twice!) Yet the man who lost his father to war, who went to war himself and unenthusiastically learned to fight and kill, and who lost his own son to war, never loses his sense of honor and his willingness to defend his fellow human beings. His initial fall results from an unplanned, instinctive act of defense while his final (and most comically heroic) act is brilliantly planned out, but both speak to his inherent goodness. I am curious to see how widely read (and finished) this book turns out to be; were I the editor, I would erase some of the dated silliness so as to appeal to a wider audience. I'd instantly buy copies of this book to gift my father and grandfather if they were still living, but sadly, they are not. My husband would probably enjoy reading it, but I don't think my son would, and that's a shame because the "character" of the main (unnamed) protagonist is worth knowing, remembering, and emulating. I am grateful to NetGalley for an early copy of this audiobook.
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