The Knife Thrower

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Martin Dressler—a collection of stories in the tradition of Nabokov, Calvino, and Borges that explores the magnificent obsessions of the unfettered imagination, as well as the darker, subterranean currents that fuel them. • "Tantalizing new stories.... Millhauser's ingenuity is delicious." —A. S. Byatt, The Washington Post Book World

With the panache of an old-fashioned magician, Steven Millhauser conducts his readers from the dark corners beneath the sunlit world to a balloonist's tour of the heavens. He transforms department stores and amusement parks into alternate universes of infinite plentitude and menace. He unveils the secrets of a maker of automatons and a coven of teenage girls. And on every page of The Knife Thrower and Other Stories, Millhauser confirms his stature as a narrative enchanter.The Knife Thrower
A Visit
The Sisterhood of Night
The Way Out
Flying Carpets
The New Automaton Theater
Claire de Lune
The Dream of the Consortium
Balloon Flight, 1870
Paradise Park
Kaspar Hauser Speaks
Beneath the Cellars of Our Town"Tantalizing new stories.... Millhauser's ingenuity is delicious." —A. S. Byatt, The Washington Post Book World

"An American writer of surpassing skill.... [Millhauser] renders the impossible itself with precision." —Chicago Tribune

"As Gothic as Poe and as imaginative as Fantasia, Millhauser's deceptive fables are funny and warm. But they're dark as dungeons, too.... He bewitches you." —Entertainment WeeklySTEVEN MILLHAUSER received the Pulitzer Prize for Martin Dressler. He is the author of Edwin Mullhouse, The Barnum Museum, and In the Penny Arcade, among other books. He lives with his wife and two children in Saratoga Springs, New York.