Refiner's Fire — Mark Helprin

An Israeli soldier's life flashes before his eyes in this epic tale: “As if The Odyssey had been updated and rewritten by Dylan Thomas” (The Listener, UK).

In 1947, Marshall Pearl is orphaned at birth aboard an immigrant ship off the coast of Palestine. Brought to America, he grows up a child of the Hudson Valley, determined to see the world in all its beauty and ferocity. His epic journey takes him from Jamaica to Harvard; from Great Plains slaughterhouses to the Mexican desert; and from the sea to the Alps. Marshall is eventually drawn to Israel to confront the circumstance of his birth in a crucible of war, magic, suffering, and grace.

We first meet Marshall among the mortally wounded Israeli soldiers who are being transferred to Haifa during the Yom Kippur War. From there we follow Marshall -- along with his memories and dreams -- as he reconstructs his life, galvanizing strength through all that he has learned, suffered, and hoped.
“Superb...A first-rate odyssey, full of insight and humor and hard-earned truths” -- San Francisco Chronicle