I adored Helprin's Memoir From Antproof Case, and I had high hopes for his Winter's Tale, but my expectations were so shattered by the latter book that I waited almost six years to try another of his novels. I do like Refiner's Fire better than Winter's Tale, but my initial love of Helprin's writing has definitely faded.

Refiner's Fire is the life story of Marshall Pearl. In the opening scene, we meet Pearl on his deathbed in Haifa during the 1973 conflict, where he served as an Israeli soldier. After this brief opening, we're given a whirlwind tour of Pearl's life, probably intended to be "flashing before his eyes" as he nears death. His life starts in conflict, on an illegal immigrant ship in 1947, where he is orphaned during a battle. He is brought to New York by the boat's captain and adopted by a Jewish family. As he grows up, he has a series of outlandish adventures, from fighting the Rastafarians in Jamaica, to stowing away on a train, to working in a surreal slaughterhouse, and so on. He ends up in Israel, searching for his biological father, where he is conscripted into service and is near-mortally wounded. The novel ends on a poetic note that ties things up nicely.

Sounds good so far, right? Well, I was not impressed with the series of Marshall's adventures. Several of them serve no real purpose in the scheme of things (other than to show off Helprin's fertile imagination), and although they are interesting as vignettes, they don't all quite fit into the tapestry of the novel. Also, at times, Helprin gets a little carried away with his use of language and ends up obfuscating things unnecessarily.

This is a better book than Winter's Tale, and I was tempted to give it four stars, but in the end I don't think it quite deserves them. It's a good novel, but not great.