Portrait of a Romantic by Steven Millhauser
My rating: 5/5 cats
why are books allowed to go out of print?? especially quality books, while ghastly interchangeable pastel chicklit books are allowed to be churned out to clog the shelves year after year? this one particularly surprises me, because it’s steven millhauser, ftlog. all of his other books are in print, he’s got a pulitzer; what more do you need to keep one lousy book in print? i’m noticing more and more as i am ordering for the store that publishers just aren’t able to keep things in print anymore, or are making only very small batches of certain backlist titles. one week, three or four “table books” will no longer be available, then they will come back, then be unavailable again. it makes me sad because on the one hand—i want them to go out and have a chance to sell, on the other hand, i want to protect them as though they are the frail endangered species, the Last Copies, and not let the others get their hands on them. sometimes it works out—obscene bird of night came back into print in a big way and i immediately ordered an unreasonable amount of copies just in case, as though i am preparing for some literary apocalypse and the store is my book bomb shelter. but this book i have never been able to get in the store, and it is my favorite millhauser, which makes it difficult for the readers advisory part of my job. “yes, millhauser is good, but you should really try to find portrait of a romantic—it’s the very best.” honesty loses sales. sigh. mike didn’t like this book, but reading his review made me realize how much it really is like fortress of solitude, without any of the popular culture references. when i read this book, f.o.s. was not even a thought in young lethem’s head, so i never mentally compared the two. now i want to read them over back-to-back. i loved both books, millhauser’s is just a darker, more fantastic, magical-realismy version. young boys and their suburban death-fascinations. this book should almost be required reading for middle school boys.
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