- Hardcover: 244 pages
- Publisher: Potter Style; 1 edition (12 Feb 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0307267563
- ISBN-13: 978-0307267566
- Product Dimensions: 14.8 x 2.7 x 22.1 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 299,479 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author hailed by The New Yorker as “a virtuoso of waking dreams” comes a dazzling new collection of darkly comic stories united by their obsession with obsession. In Dangerous Laughter, Steven Millhauser transports us to unknown universes that uncannily resemble our own.
The collection is divided into three parts that fit seamlessly together as a whole. It opens with a bang, as “Cat ’n’ Mouse” reimagines the deadly ritual between cartoon rivals in a comedy of dynamite and anvils—a masterly prologue that sets the stage for the alluring, very grown-up twists that follow.
Part one, “Vanishing Acts,” features stories of risk and escape: a lonely woman disappears without a trace; a high school boy becomes entangled with his best friend’s troubled sister; and a group of teenagers play a treacherous game that pushes them deep into “the kingdom of forbidden things.”
Excess reigns in the vivid, haunting places of Part two’s “Impossible Architectures,” where domes enclose whole cities, and a king’s master miniaturist creates objects so tiny that soon his entire world is invisible.
Finally, “Heretical Histories” presents startling alternatives to the remembered past. “A Precursor of the Cinema” proposes a new, enigmatic form of illusion. And in the astonishing “The Wizard of West Orange” a famous inventor sets out to simulate the sense of touch—but success brings disturbing consequences.
Sensual, mysterious, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey through brilliantly realized labyrinths of mortal pleasures that stretch the boundaries of the ordinary world to their limits—and occasionally beyond.
The collection is divided into three parts that fit seamlessly together as a whole. It opens with a bang, as “Cat ’n’ Mouse” reimagines the deadly ritual between cartoon rivals in a comedy of dynamite and anvils—a masterly prologue that sets the stage for the alluring, very grown-up twists that follow.
Part one, “Vanishing Acts,” features stories of risk and escape: a lonely woman disappears without a trace; a high school boy becomes entangled with his best friend’s troubled sister; and a group of teenagers play a treacherous game that pushes them deep into “the kingdom of forbidden things.”
Excess reigns in the vivid, haunting places of Part two’s “Impossible Architectures,” where domes enclose whole cities, and a king’s master miniaturist creates objects so tiny that soon his entire world is invisible.
Finally, “Heretical Histories” presents startling alternatives to the remembered past. “A Precursor of the Cinema” proposes a new, enigmatic form of illusion. And in the astonishing “The Wizard of West Orange” a famous inventor sets out to simulate the sense of touch—but success brings disturbing consequences.
Sensual, mysterious, Dangerous Laughter is a mesmerizing journey through brilliantly realized labyrinths of mortal pleasures that stretch the boundaries of the ordinary world to their limits—and occasionally beyond.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
20 reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
WOW!
27 April 2008
Format:Hardcover
I'm not going to synopsize the stories since that has been well done by the other reviews. This book has actually been a thrill for me, someone who is not a fan of short stories, because I have never been exposed to so many great stories with this particular slant. One story that really drew me to it was the man who stopped speaking; I don't know why, but I must have read that 8 times while reading the entire book. One reviewer said that s/he had to read all the stories at one sitting, but I was just the reverse. I loved these so much that I only allowed myself 3 stories and a re-read of the man who stopped talking at each sitting.
After reading the first 2 stories I logged onto Amazon and ordered everything by this author.
I suggest you buy this book. I feel certain that you won't be bored.
After reading the first 2 stories I logged onto Amazon and ordered everything by this author.
I suggest you buy this book. I feel certain that you won't be bored.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Strange Love
15 April 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
If you got this far, you should get the book. I don't think there is anything quite like Millhauser except, of course, for strange machines where you can put a quarter in and find yourself shrunk ala Tom Hanks.
This is a most enjoyable read even when you get weary of the current story only to go on to the next, better one.
This is a most enjoyable read even when you get weary of the current story only to go on to the next, better one.
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Left of Center
29 Mar 2008
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
As in all of his work, Steven Millhauser creates worlds that are just to the left of the center of reality. Each story has a haunting quality that is impossible to quantify, and each keeps you wanting to know more about the inhabitants of his world. Some are thinly veiled allegories, some not so obtuse metaphors, but every one of these 13 stories makes the reader think more about his own world and his perception of it.
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