I've pretty much decided Mark Helprin is the best writer I'm going to come into contact with any time soon. The first Helprin book I found was Winter's Tale, which was published in 1983. There's a bookstore in Tampa (for any locals, it's on the corner of Platt and Armenia) called Inkwood Books, and they have a practice of marking employees' favorites with easily noticed strips of paper stuck between the pages. Winter's Tale was so marked, so even though it was a pricey trade paperback, and I was out of work, I bought it. It took me several months to get around to reading it, and it took me almost a month to get through it. Mark Helprin uses the English language in a way that makes me drool. He builds these incredible sentences; I can't describe them, but I can give examples.

Actually, come to think of it, the very first Mark Helprin book I found was Swan Lake, a gorgeous children's book that tells the irresistible story the ballet never told. Swan Lake is illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg, who is also incredible.

After I recovered from Winter's Tale, I read a book of short stories called Ellis Island And Other Stories. I kept that out from the library so long it cost me three dollars in fines to return it.

Every week or so, I cruise the New Fiction rack at the library, and late last year I found the newest Helprin novel, Memoir From Antproof Case. The nameless hero of this one successfully robbed one of the largest banks in New York. He wages daily a war against the evil enslaver coffee. This is a weird book. It has a really wonderful story, though, with thousands of details, and each chapter begins with the words Please return the previous pages to the antproof case. This kind of impossible intimacy between the reader and the narrator is something I treasure; it's one of my favorite things about The Virgin Suicides too. I felt guilty that I couldn't comply.

Recently, I got Helprin's 1991 novel, A Soldier of the Great War, from the library. I haven't read it yet, but I'm certain I'll have some high praise here soon.

The rest of Helprin's major works consist of a novel entitled Refiner's Fire and another book of short work, Dove of the East and Other Stories. My library doesn't have them, or if it does, they're misfiled somewhere. Don't get me started on my distrust of computerized card catalogs.

Helprin has also published short stories in many major magazines, most notably The New Yorker and Esquire. I recently sat down in front of a microfiche machine and read a short story called Last Tea With The Armorers, from the October 1995 issue of Esquire. It was quite good, with a lovely leave-you-hanging ending. It speaks to the quality and addictiveness of this man's writing that I spent half an hour or so craning my neck to read an underlit fiche-reader screen in order to devour more of it.