“The three-ring kind”
Pretzels turn up here and there in Steven Millhauser’s fiction: rods, sticks, and (elsewhere) three-ringers. I think of them as a marker of mid-century American life, like plaid thermoses and transistor radios.
“Reachable by rowboat”
The New Dressler is no ordinary hotel.
Rapture
From Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
“It’s a tall city”
From Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
“The power of good penmanship”
From Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer.
“We too have our stories”
From “The Princess, the Dwarf, and the Dungeon.”
“Silent and black-and-white”
From “The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne.”
Specialization
From “The Little Kingdom of J. Franklin Payne.”
Illusions and inventions
From “Eisenheim the Illusionist.“
Headaches
A passage from Steven Millhauser’s “The Invention of Robert Herendeen.“
“One fluke visible”
From Steven Millhauser’s “Klassik Komix #1.“
Cloud-stuff
From Steven Millhauser’s From the Realm of Morpheus.
Thimbles
From Steven Millhauser’s From the Realm of Morpheus.
Some books are to be tasted, &c.
Edible books. From Steven Millhauser’s From the Realm of Morpheus.
“Dreamers all”
From Steven Millhauser’s From the Realm of Morpheus.
“The Corridors of Insomnia”
From Steven Millhauser’s “Cathay.”
“You’re sitting in a tree, Cath”
A Salingeresque moment from Steven Millhauser’s “The Sledding Party.”
“God, you’re prejudiced”
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
“In her wavering, collapsing script”
Arthur Grumm is playing Monopoly with his friend William Mainwaring. But Arthur’s mind is on “her.” That is, Eleanor Schumann.
Parts going their own way
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
“Home Run”
A sentence-long story by Steven Millhauser.
“And behold!”
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
“And a bottle of blueblack ink”
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
“Like a sky”
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
“High time” to “help”
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
Recently updated
Why Edwin Mullhouse’s crush is named Rose Dorn.
“Slightly blurred”
From Steven Millhauser’s Portrait of a Romantic.
Edwin who?
What can ChatGPT tell us about Edwin Mullhouse, of Steven Millhauser’s novel Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright ?
Arnold Hasselstrom
A disobedient boy.
From Cartoons
Jeffrey Cartwright will go on to provide an extended summary of Cartoons.