Mark Helprin

American author of "A Winter's Tale," published in 1984. Most of his short stories and novels have featured war, the sea and machines as chief ingredients. Referring to machines he stated, "I saw something in machines which was this: In machines there are no excuses. ...When you're putting back together a machine you've taken apart, you can't take shortcuts. You have to do the right thing even if you're under pressure. You're dealing with ... the subjective laws of nature." The son of a film executive, Helprin states he didn't want to grow up to emulate either parent who, in his estimation, were too physically unfit, pleasure-seeking and undisciplined. Helprin, a Harvard graduate, leads a Spartan life eschewing rich food, coffee, alcohol, smoking, procrastination, professional sports, or disorderly environments. In fact he said, "I don't care about the pleasure of eating food. If I could, I'd take all my nourishment in a pill." He dresses neatly, runs, rearranges his refrigerator alphabetically by food group, climbs mountains and loves to write. After he left Harvard University's Middle Eastern Studies graduate program to enlist in Israel's armed forces at age 25, he gained a year of experiences as an egg-peeler, dishwasher and border guard in the Israeli Infantry and Air Corps from which his active imagination later drew. While he saw little action, Helprin seems to need only to get close to an event to absorb its essence and transform his perceptions into art. He claims to have billions of inventions "groaning and creaking" in his brain which often spill out into his writing. His first novel, "Refiner's Fire," was published in 1977 and there are two collections of short stories: "Dove of the East and other Stories," 1975, and "Ellis Island and Other Stories," 1980. Helprin is married to a Chase Manhattan Bank tax attorney. Link to Wikipedia biography