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Paris in the Present Tense

Audiobook
2 of 3 copies available
2 of 3 copies available

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Winter's Tale and A Soldier of the Great War, Mark Helprin reveals a powerful, rapturous novel set in a present-day Paris caught between violent unrest and its well-known, inescapable glories.

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.

In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life with its days bright with music, family, and 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 who is 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.

In the intoxicating beauty of its prose and emotional amplitude of its storytelling, Mark Helprin's Paris in the Present Tense is a soaring achievement, a deep, dizzying look at a life through the purifying lenses of art and memory.

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    • AudioFile Magazine
      Bronson Pinchot delivers a powerful performance of Mark Helprin's stunning novel. Jules Lacour was born in a garret and hidden from the Nazis. His life began in darkness, a start that now fuels his intense love of life, art, romance, and goodness. As an accomplished cellist and instructor at the Sorbonne, he embraces the beauty of Paris, but upon his great love's death, Lacour must face the cold realities of life. For once Lacour is forced to compromise his principles and take risks. Pinchot is given the task of expressing countless emotions, voices, and accents that manifest the rich Parisian landscape. His portrayal of Lacour's dissonant emotions is gut-wrenching as he moves from spirited joy to a somber tone of shock and disappointment. Helprin's writing is intoxicating, and Pinchot embraces every syllable. E.B. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

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