Winter's Tale

Winter's Tale is a 1983 magic realism novel by Mark Helprin. It takes place in a mythic New York City, markedly different from reality, and in an industrial Edwardian era near the turn of the 20th century. The novel was adapted into a 2014 feature film by Akiva Goldsman. Characters Peter Lake Peter Lake is the central character of Winter's Tale. An immigrant couple who were denied admission at Ellis Island due to consumption are forced to return to the ship City of Justice which had brought them. They break the display case containing a model of their ocean-going vessel and set their son Peter adrift in New York Harbor inside it. He is found in the reeds and adopted by the Baymen of the Bayonne Marsh, who send him off to Manhattan when he comes of age. There he first becomes a mechanic and then is forced to become a burglar in a gang called the Short Tails. He soon makes a mortal enemy of their leader, Pearly Soames, and is constantly on the run from the gang. Early one winter morning, Peter is on the brink of being captured and killed by the gang when he is rescued by a mysterious white horse, who becomes his guardian. While attempting to rob a house, Peter meets and falls in love with Beverly Penn. The daughter of millionaire Isaac Penn, owner and publisher of The Sun, one of New York's greatest newspapers, Beverly is eccentric, free-spirited, and enigmatic. This captivates Peter initially, but her deeper nature is revealed with her terminal consumption. Beverly never disappears from Peter's life, protecting him until the very end. His love for the dying Beverly causes him to become obsessed with justice.