An Allegiance to Ghosts

In his latest novel, Elegy in Blue, Mark Helprin, a novelist, essayist, and national security analyst, weaves a tale of sorrow, love, and remembrance, which compels the reader to touch the shards of glass scattered everywhere by American civilization in these dread years of the twenty-first century; years marred by terrorism, war, and insensible hatreds. Helprin’s unnamed octogenarian protagonist and narrator lives in Brooklyn, has built a highly successful financial house, and is recently widowed. The death of his beloved wife, Clare, turns his life upside down, breaks it, and leaves him humbled and yet transcendently wise before the world. She dies on a beautiful night on the streets of Gotham, during one of the many walks they would take to Coney Island from Brooklyn Heights (spoilers follow).