This award-winning short story collection by the acclaimed author of Winter's Tale "ascends to the peak of literary achievement" (The Boston Globe).

Winner of the Prix de Rome and the National Jewish Book Award, these eleven stories demonstrate Mark Helprin's mastery of fiction across a diverse spectrum of styles. The stories in this collection range from children caught in a Vermont blizzard to an English sea captain who encounters an ape adrift in the Indian Ocean. The title novella tells the tale of a Jewish immigrant who arrives in New York City with little more than an ivory pen—and an unflagging determination to survive the indignities of Ellis Island's many protocols.

In the worlds of The Philadelphia Inquirer, this collection presents "stories beyond compare…[Helprin's] imagination should be protected by some intellectual equivalent of the National Park Service."

"Such an ambitious reach is almost unheard of in our short fiction."—New York Times Book Review