So my Goodreads hates me because every time I go to submit a review, it deletes it... 
 ...which frustrates me. And then, if I do rewrite the review, it's not nearly as complete or put-together. 
 I ended this book with a "what.the.fuck.[just happened]." I really wanted this book to work for me. The story of Peter Lake & Beverly, described in the blurb of the book is, unfortunately, mostly only the first 150-200 pages of the book. What follows in about 600 pages of all-over-the-place storyline with a variety of different unconnected characters that were, for the most part, uninteresting to me. Just about 100 pages from the end, it seemed as if the story was pulling itself together... only to end in an anticlimactic resolution (or non-resolution?). 
 I feel like maybe there was something I just didn't grasp here, considering all the positive reviews. To me, the author was seemingly writing under the influence. I could definitely see a really great writer underneath it all, really great sentences and areas/ideas but the overall storyline was all over the place. Some of the negative reviews were not fans of over-the-top sentence structure. I can handle over-the-top flowery descriptions, and usually tend to favor them, but Helprin's storytelling could have used some organization. Or maybe he could've separated this "tale" into multiple "tales."