A review by pearseanderson
We Others: New and Selected Stories by Steven Millhauser

4.0

One of those classic new and selecteds that helps if you read it real slow, as the Millhauserness starts to build up in your system: must . . . praise circuses and similar houses of strange comfort and consumerism. Must . . . discuss a coming of age story with bright, select details in an America that could be the 1950s or the 1990s, really timeless qualities. Mush . . . show the quiet loss and unreality of the world, and that all we love is layered with masks and disguises, whether seen through gloves or criminal alises or the opaque life of ghosts. Okay Millhauser! Go off I guess. He selected the stories in an interesting way, and I feel drawn to only a good 3/5ths of them, the others retreaded the same themes and topics in ways that didn't connect or feel like they breached especially new ground (See: Snowmen v Flying Carpets, for example). What Millhauser does do wonderfully are these dense historical paragraphs that hold a certain taughtness and authority I'm amazed at. His work is brilliant if I wanted to study how to do a 1890s Bildingsroman, or a 1950s surrealist piece. On that alone I'm sure I'll be returning to his work, it's really enchanting and inspiring. 7/10 overall for the antho.