Millhauser

You can't just read a Stephen Millhauser book in your favorite chair or in bed before you go to sleep. You have to put a hammock in an unused corner of your yard, take the book on a trip, or at least — at the very least — turn your reading chair around to face another wall. Millhauser will always take you on a journey of imagination, playing tricks on you, making you believe in things that aren't so or look at a common object diagonally. He is a conqueror of that moment in space between wakefulness and dreams, shuffling and confusing the two. When you've finished a story you need a moment to "return" and it's too special a moment to be wasted on your blank TV set or your bureau — you need to be able to look up and sigh and be able to focus on something unexpected there in front of you. Ah, Stephen, Stephen...