Mark helprin author biography essay examples

Currently he is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute. His interest in Virginia was piqued, when, at the age of seven, he visited Civil War battlefields on a family road trip south. From New York to Virginia, as far south as Savannah and back through Maryland—and this was before the days of interstate highways—young Helprin checked off as many sites as his family could squeeze in.

Leaders were educated.

Mark helprin interview

His writing is brilliant and eloquent, where the reader must take a breath every few paragraphs for the words to marinate. The Helprins also chose Virginia to provide the best possible education for their two daughters. When I visit in the summer, I see field upon field of tall, sweet corn and soybeans, and pass nearly a dozen wineries in the Monticello American Viticultural area.

A rolling ladder helps him access books otherwise unreachable, and he identifies titles with an eyeglass. Helprin writes in longhand—usually with a Uniball pen—on one of the two sprawling desks positioned at either end of his study. His exhaustive research takes the forms of notes and documents in marked files that live on a rolling cart.

With a staggering aptitude for details, colors, impressions, settings, and events from his kaleidoscopic background and fertile mind, he carefully weaves them into the lives of the characters he creates to impart truth and universal values.