Will I love The Knife Thrower?

Millhauser’s stories are miracles. He combines the wonderstruck imagination of the fairy tale lover with surpassing technical expertise, and the result is beautiful art. This collection’s title story, for instance, is simultaneously a fairy tale, an exploration of group morality, a rigorous demonstration of the Freytagian dramatic structure, and a gripping story from start to finish.

Stephen Millhauser writes so elegantly. He’s also one of the smartest writers on the miniature that I’ve come across. He doesn’t just use tiny things to delight and enthrall us but interrogates why we find the miniature so compelling. It’s fitting that his best work is to be found in short story form, where he crafts fiendishly complex tales of obsessed miniature makers, like in “The New Automaton Theatre.” This intriguing example, told in (I think) first-person plural perspective, is a fictional history of ‘automaton theatre’ that speculates not just on our fascination with the miniature, but with imitative art… show more.