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Beloved for the lens of the strange he places on small-town life, Steven Millhauser further reveals in Voices in the Night the darkest parts of our inner selves to brilliant and dazzling effect. Here are stories of wondrously imaginative hyperrealism, stories that pose unsettling what-ifs or that find barely perceivable evils within the safe boundaries of our towns, homes, and even our bodies. Here, too, are stories culled from religion and fables: from Samuel, who in the masterly “A Voice in the Night” hears the voice of God calling him in the night; to a young, pre-enlightenment Buddha; to Rapunzel and her Prince awakened only to everyday disappointment. Heightened by magic, the divine, and the uncanny, shot through with sly humour, Voices in the Night seamlessly combines the whimsy and surprise of the familiar with intoxicating fantasies that take us beyond our daily lives, all done with the hallmark sleight of hand and astonishing virtuosity of one of our greatest modern storytellers.
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Reviews
The writing is rarely elaborate, relying mainly on the charm of its ideas or the smoothness of its storytelling to keep the reader's attention ... Nothing here is ever short of well-made and there are plenty of laughs. Despite the occasionally morbid subject matter, Millhauser's tone is never cynical or cold either. Even the deaths and disappearances have an otherworldly quality about them, a gentleness which also feels like an awareness of the fact that beneath our fantasies lie our limitations and disappointments.
A superb testament to America's quirkiest short story writer, still on his game.