In Sunlight and in Shadow

By: Mark Helprin

Narrated by: Sean Runnette

Length: 29 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Mark Helprin’s enchanting and sweeping novel asks a simple question: can love and honor conquer all?

New York in 1947 glows with postwar energy. Harry Copeland, an elite paratrooper who fought behind enemy lines in Europe, returns home to run the family business. In a single, magical encounter on the Staten Island ferry, the young singer and heiress Catherine Thomas Hale falls for him instantly but too late to prevent her engagement to a much older man. Harry and Catherine pursue one another in a romance played out in postwar America’s Broadway theaters, Long Island mansions, the offices of financiers, and the haunts of gangsters. Catherine’s choice of Harry over her longtime fiancé endangers Harry’s livelihood - and eventually threatens his life.

Entrancing in its lyricism, In Sunlight and in Shadow so powerfully draws you into New York at the dawn of the modern age that, as in a vivid dream, you will not want to leave.

About the author: Mark Helprin was educated at Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Oxford. He served in the Israeli military and the British Merchant Navy. He is the acclaimed author of Winter’s Tale and numerous other works.

©2012 Mark Helprin (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“In this prodigious, enfolding saga of exalted romance in corrupt, postwar New York, resplendent storyteller Helprin creates a supremely gifted and principled hero…Helprin’s suspenseful, many-stranded plot is unfailingly enthralling. The sumptuous settings are intoxicating. The novel’s seething indictment of mobster rule in the 1940s is bracing, and the lovers’ high-stakes predicaments are heartbreaking. Helprin’s personal articles of faith shape every scene as he expresses deep respect for soldiers, sensitivity to anti-Semitism and racism, and stalwart belief in valor and individual exceptionalism. So declarative is this philosophical tale that it can be read as Helprin’s spiritual and lyrical answer to the big, bossy, and enduring novels of Ayn Rand.” ( Booklist, starred review)

“Elegant, elegiac…A fine adult love story - not in the prurient sense, but in the sense of lovers elevated from smittenness to all the grownup problems that a relationship can bring.” ( Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“Glorious and golden, truly like reentering another world where another sensibility prevails and even the sunlight and shadow have a different weight.” ( Library Journal)

Great Helprin; Narrator wrecks it

What did you like best about In Sunlight and in Shadow? What did you like least?

I love all Helprin books. They're truly transporting. His stories are always vivid, dialog fantastic, and he puts you "right there." Have just started this one -- am deep enough into it to be engaged.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

He's sonorous, ponderous, pompous and DULL! It's hard enough staying with any Helprin novel but this narrator will put you out as sure as an anvil dropped on your head. In fact, sometimes I'd prefer the anvil.

Do you think In Sunlight and in Shadow needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

No.

Too long and romaticized

Any additional comments?

Years ago I read Helprin’s A Soldier in the Great War and found it to be an impressive description of the stupidity of war. In Sunlight and in Shadow he jumps back to WWII from a somber post WWII present. The portions of the book that cover the war are first rate. Unfortunately his descriptions of Harry’s romance with a young singer in NYC is too sophomoric and so overwhelmingly romanticized they are difficult to listen to. The words cloy. Perhaps this is due to the bated breath or the reader; as if this love affair between a thirty something vet and Katherine (no virgin) were something on the pedestal of adolescence. There is a bit of F. Scott Fitzgerald to the scenes in the Hamptons among the well-heeled set. This is juxtaposed to the gritty business of protection rackets in NYC. The book is also interminably long due to rambling descriptions and a fondness for employing an excess of adjectives. If you can get past the saccharine romance and the ponderous verbiage there is a good story with a bit of depressing and maybe inevitable ending.

In sunlight and shadow--superb novel

If you could sum up In Sunlight and in Shadow in three words, what would they be?

Couldn't stop listening

Who was your favorite character and why?

Harry Copeland

Have you listened to any of Sean Runnette’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

First time--super good job

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No laughs--some tears

Any additional comments?

Halprin may be the best American Novelist writing today.

Brilliant, As One Would Expect from Helprin

Mark Helprin is without doubt one of America's finest living authors. An absolute master of both the short story and the novel, his fiction never ceases to delight this reader.

Helprin does it again

The story is so good that I often wanted to skip the beautiful prose, the perfectly crafted sentences, the lovely and delicate insights. But I didn’t, and am the richer for it.

An absprbomg read

Why is it so absorbing to red a book set in a very familiar setting? Mark Halprin takes you into many different New York City venues, from the Staten Island ferry to Grand Central Terminal and beyond for his tale of intrigue and romance. His leading lady and her smitten beau struggle to find the time to live out their passion while she launches a career on Broadway and he, having survived WW II as a paratrooper, is determined to avenge the damage inflicted by the Mafia on his family business. A bit long on descriptions and details but well worth the time.

Sometimes brilliant writing, bogs down often

I do not remember being so torn by an experience with an audio book. When mr. Helprin focuses on plot I have not read a better writer. WOW is he could at telling a story. And then..... He gets bogged down in philosophizing, describing, ruminating, detailing, zooming in on some aspect of society and spending pages discussing it from all angles. Ok, a certain amount of this is very interesting, he has great things to say and it is fun listening to his perceptive view UP TO A POINT!

Where was his editor for this book?

I love everything about this book as a story. This the Perfect novel to turn into a movie because you could leave everything out except the actual story and you would have a blockbuster movie that you could bring in for around two-plus hours.

That being said, I did not like the way it ended. Too abrupt. Wanted to know a little more about the lives of those 'left behind.' See? I love his storytelling and as far as I am concerned the book could,go on and on with the story and I would be a happy listener.

Worth the effort

If you could sum up In Sunlight and in Shadow in three words, what would they be?

Lyrical, gorgeous and romantic.

What other book might you compare In Sunlight and in Shadow to and why?

The Piano, Frank Conroy: New York City; the 1940s; Glorious romantic style. Overcoming great obstacles against hard reality; growing into adulthood through travail and an unwillingness to give up.

What does Sean Runnette bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Enunciation, an ability to manage voices well and convincingly. Easy to listen to for nearly 30 hours.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me patiently watch and engage, unusual for me.

Any additional comments?

Give this book a chance, but be prepared to sip. This is poetry as well as fiction, and it requires time and attention. I found it well worth it.

Touching, So Humanx Slow Going

I got this because I loved The movie, "A Winter's Tale" by the same author. I was disappointed to find the writing for that different movie was much better for me than the written book and audio book.
The writing is smooth, lilting and poetic. The book made me feel like I was living with the characters just after WWII.
It is highly romantic. The author and narrator took me to a time and place I wish existed, if ever people were really that romantic, perfect and selfless.
Enjoyable. .. but I was glad when it was over. This is not a page turner. There are very long descriptions ... perhaps too wordy .
I enjoyed it as an audio book but doubt I'd have continued to the end if I had to read the words. .. and I love to read.

Great Insomnia Listening

This is sort-of a compliment. I suffer from bouts of insomnia, and have found that putting on an audiobook to occupy my brain is a great way to get back to sleep at 4 in the morning. It's also a great way to listen to a book without any of the distractions of the outside world, and really listen to the writing.

This only becomes problematic when a story becomes engaging (for instance, I initially started listening to Little Dorrit to put myself back to sleep, but at some point became so interested in the story that I would wake up and rewind back to hear what I'd slept through.)

So far, I have found In Sunlight and in Shadow is a perfect book to fall back to sleep to. The writing is dreamlike, lyrical and descriptive, the plot pacing so slow and the narration so generally monotone (there's nothing worse then when a male narrator badly imitates a woman's voice -- the pitch change can shock you back awake) that this is perfect insomnia listening. I fell asleep to it one night, and dreamt I was in New York.

My only issue with it is that by day, my waking brain cannot stay with it. I listened to a description of Catherine taking a breath in a music hall about 3 times and spaced out every time before I figured out what she was actually doing there. I honestly thought she was an oboe player. I had to read a review to learn that she was a singer.

To do this book justice, I think I'll go back to listening to it only at 4 am, and find something a little more engaging to listen to by day.

PS - A great thing about the Audible app on the iphone, is that you can program it to go off - and it sort of fades out very subtly. This is especially recommended when you are nearing the end of a book. The last thing you need at 4:45 am is to be jolted back awake with: "Audible hopes you have enjoyed this program!"