Refiner's Fire

Marshall Pearl is orphaned at birth on an immigrant ship off the coast of Palestine in 1947, then brought to americanca. His experiences take him from the Hudson River Valley, to Harvard, to sea on a British merchant ship, then finally back to his birthplace, where he serves as an Israeli soldier in the Yom Kippur War. “Superb...A first-rate odyssey, full of insight and humor and hard-earned truths” (San Francisco Chronicle).

"That best of all possible novels: read ten pages and you can't put it down; finish it and you'll feel it haunt your days and nights." - The San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle
Refiner's Fire is the story of Marshall Pearl, orphaned at birth aboard an illegal immigrant ship off the coast of Palestine in 1947 and brought as an infant into the "ardent unlimitedness" of America. Determined to see the world in its beauty, ferocity, and ultimate justice, he does so, in scenes of gorgeous color and great excitement, as a child in the Hudson Valley, fighting Rastifarians in Jamaica, at Harvard, in a slaughterhouse on the Great Plains, in the Mexican desert, on the sea, and in the Alps. Finally he is drawn to Israel to confront the logic of his birth, in a crucible of war, magic, suffering, and grace. At the opening of the book, he is one of the dying wounded being transported to Haifa during the 1973 war. We follow him as he dreams, reconstructing his life, until, by the strength of what he has learned, suffered, and hoped, Marshall Pearl rises.
"Every once in a while a book appears that engulfs you in its limitless beauty. This is such a book. Helprin's use of language and imagery is an ineffable joy." - The Philadelphia Inquirer
"Refiner's Fire is an experience, like being shot out of a cannon - exhilarating, extravagant, vertiginous." - The Boston Globe
Educated at Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford, Mark Helprin served in the Israeli army, Israeli Air Force, and British Merchant Navy. He is the author of, among other titles, Refiner's Fire, Ellis Island and Other Stories, Winter's Tale, A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case, The Pacific and Other Stories, and Freddy and Fredericka.