Martin Dressler The Tale of an American Dreamer

Young Martin Dressler begins his career as an industrious helper in his father's cigar store. In the course of his restless young manhood, he makes a swift and eventful rise to the top, accompanied by two sisters--one a dreamlike shadow, the other a worldly business partner. As the eponymous Martin's vision becomes bolder and bolder he walks a haunted line between fantasy and reality, madness and ambition, art and industry, a sense of doom builds piece-by-hypnotic piece until this mesmerizing journey into the heart of an American dreamer reaches its bitter-sweet conclusion.

Steven Millhauser lives in Saratoga Springs, New York and teaches at Skidmore College.  His first novel, Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright, which has been out of print since 1990, is now available in trade paperback from Vintage Contemporaries, to coincide with the publication of Martin Dressler.