Can you give me a title or author's name for this book?

[gp0560]

​Can anyone here help me identify a certain novel? I read this book some years ago, and the images have remained so vivid in my mind that I would like to read it again. Unfortunately, neither the title nor the author's name has remained as vivid as the images. Here's what I can tell you:

• It's classed as a regular novel, i.e., not science fiction, in spite of its unusual story and tone.
  
• It has a first-person narrator, and the style is standard narrative prose. I think of it as realist prose describing a non-realist world.
  
• It is set in New York in the last half of the 19th century, at a time when the city was being extended north of its traditional boundary. One of the major settings is a mansion standing alone along one of the avenues. The house's location reminds me of Mrs. Manson Mingott's in The Age of Innocence, which was "in an inaccessible wilderness near the Central Park."
  
• There are scenes involving roaming gangs in the southern part of the city, maybe in the Bowery area. The areas under the tracks of the elevated trains are their major haunts.
  
• The primary image is "cold." Not the causes of cold, such as ice and snow, just the sensation of cold. Snow, ice, and wind are mentioned but they are not primary. I seem to remember a scene in the tower of the mansion, with the cold of the tower and the city in general predominating. In any case, cold and bleakness rule throughout.
  
• Naturally enough, the colors of the book jacket are blues and whites and silvers.
  

Any help you can give would be appreciated. No monetary compensation, however, just hearty thanks. <smile>

[playwrestler]

Just a guess... but it could be Mark Helprin's WINTER'S TALE. Still one of my favorite novels (also very unusual) and don't whatever you do see the movie!

[gp0560]

Just a guess... but it could be Mark Helprin's WINTER'S TALE. Still one of my favorite novels (also very unusual) and don't whatever you do see the movie!

 

YES! I looked at the pages available on Amazon, and that's the book. Thanks so much, PW, I'm off to the library to pick it up.