The Knife Thrower

This book features twelve fabulous stories from 'the most inventive, wistful, sexy, and wryly comic writer of our time' ("Washington Post"), his first book since "Martin Dressler". Unmistakably Millhauser, these stories range from the imaginative to the phantasmagoric, and all inhabit a strange world, part American, part European, wholly fantastic. From the terrifying opening tale of the knife-thrower, the consummate entertainer pushing his audience to collusion in the ultimate thrill to a fictional meditation on the far from innocent nightlife of teenage girls, these vividly told stories demonstrate, once again, why Steven Millhauser is one of the most acclaimed, and certainly one of the most distinctive, American writers of the age.