In Sunlight and in Shadow by Mark Helprin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Helprin’s writing is lyrical, lush, metaphorical, and the imagery throughout is wonderful. The plot is strong, and it delivers the right level of emotional payoff at the end. But it gets bogged down with monologues that are inflated and unrealistic and there’s a whole looong interlude spent on Harry's flashbacks to his wartime experiences which was too much. If the 700 pages were edited to 500 I would give it 5 stars. Still, the story and the characters still remain with me 4 weeks after reading it and I'm hoping it will be made into a movie.

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