“A modern-day story of love, music, and death . . . A masterpiece filled with compassion and humanity. Perfect for the pure pleasure of reading.”
NO MAJOR SPOILERS
Just finished Paris in the Present Tense by Mark Helprin. This is the story of Jules Lacuor, a widower in his mid seventies, who has a daughter, her husband, and his grandson Luc who has Leukemia.
He is a musician who also teaches at a college in Paris. Jules wants to send Luc to America for the best medical care. When a large Corporation approaches him to write a piece of music which will become their signature sound he accepts, writes the piece, and has it accepted. He travels to America to seal the deal, but it falls through at the last moment, leaving him with nothing.
The story than becomes how will Jules raise the money he needs for Luc. He will revert to any means, including fraud, to get the money. There are other subplots in the story that will make things more difficult for him to achieve his goal.
The book at 395 pages is long and the first 100 pages were particularly slow. Once the story really gets moving it gets better, but frankly, I felt it just wasn’t worth the trip.
I have read other books by the author and I am a fan, but in this particular case, I would skip it.
Reviewed by:
Richard Franco
Added 19th November 2017
