Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer - Hardcover

Millhauser, Steven

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 051770319X ISBN 13: 9780517703199

Publisher: Crown Pub, 1996

Synopsis

Young Martin Dressler begins his career as an industrious helper in his father's cigar store.  In the course of his restless young manhood, he makes a swift and eventful rise to the top, accompanied  by two sisters--one a dreamlike shadow, the other a worldly business partner. As the eponymous Martin's vision becomes bolder and bolder he walks a haunted line between fantasy and reality, madness and ambition, art and industry, a  sense of doom builds piece-by-hypnotic piece until this mesmerizing journey into the heart of an American dreamer reaches its bitter-sweet conclusion.

About this title

Review

"This wonderful, wonder-full book is a fable and phantasmagoria of the sources of our century."--The New York Times Book Review

"The novel is told as a fable, with prose both lush and dreamlike. The characters are intentionally rather shadowy, while the period details- of building construction, interior design, dress styles, street scenes--have a sensuality so palpable you can practically chew on them."--The Wall Street Journal

"A Chronicle of obsession, self-indulgence, and, in a curious way, moral growth, expertly poised between realistic narrative and allegorical fable.... A fascinating and provocative portrayal of turn-of-the-century America that hums with energy and wit." --Kirkus Reviews

"Literature's romance with building-as-metaphor earns new energy through Millhauser's latest novel...which quietly chronicles the life of an entrepreneur whose career peaks when he builds a fabulous hotel.... Taking its place alongside other fine tales of architectural symbology, from Poe to Ayn Rand, this enticing novel becomes at once a tale of life, a marriage and a creative imagination in crisis." --Publishers Weekly

Book Description

Martin Dressler tells the story of a young entrepreneur in late-nineteenth-century New York City whose ambition to make concrete an elusive dream leads to a fabulous creation that houses the imagination itself. Winner of the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown Pub
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 051770319X
• ISBN 13: 9780517703199
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 293