by Mark Helprin

Jules Lacour is a well-travelled, richly experienced, and musically gifted seventy-four year old widower whose years should entitle him to live out his days in peace and contemplation. Instead he suddenly confronts a series of challenges to all that he holds dear. He simultaneously risks fraud, finds love, is drawn into a savage act of violence, and must match wits with a rogue insurance investigator.

Sam Sacks of the Wall Street Journal wrote, “In most of the novels written in the United States since World War II, we find characters who have little or nothing to believe in . . . Mark Helprin is one of the rare writers for whom this is not the case . . . His books are romances in the chivalric mold, in which beauty, love and bravery possess a greater reality than the characters dedicated to honoring them. This is true again in his enchanting new novel, Paris in the Present Tense . . . This passionate and uplifting book produces a kind of music that few living writers know how to create.”

Barbara, our expert, found this conversation with the author:

The Bir-Hakeim bridge plays a central role in the story. The Wikipedia article on it includes this picture as well as several others:

Barbara also wanted to allow you to hear Yo Yo Ma performing Bach’s Sei Lob und Preis mit Ehren: