Matt B. (BuffaloSavage) reviewed on 2/9/2023 + 53 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 1

This is a 1972 novel that puts over the traditional literary fraud of fiction impersonating fact. The narrator, Jeffrey Cartwright, is a friend of Edwin Mullhouse, a precocious genius who wrote the Great American Novel at the age of ten. Millhauser, through Jeffrey's narration, has an exceptional ability to capture the transient impressions, turbulent emotions, dramas and interludes, fears, confusions, bungles and shocks that constitute the daily life of a child. The novel is a satire of biography, especially literary biography, and presents a commentary on obsession and the choices our workaholic culture and addiction-driven consumer life offer. It is a classic of passion and fixation, joining classics such as Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, Lolita, The Collector, and Possession. The novel is a timeless exploration of childhood and the power of obsession. Readers born from about 1945 to 1955 will find a lot of touchstones.

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