Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
Steven Millhauser · b. 1943 · USA
Why it matters
A tobacconist's son rises from bellboy to the builder of ever more fantastical hotels, his American ambition escalating past all reasonable limit into something closer to hallucination. Millhauser's Pulitzer winner renders capitalist dreaming as both fairy tale and cautionary fever dream.
At a glance
bildungsromanpsychological novel
Difficulty 5/10medium pace304 pagesDreamlike escalation and meticulous descriptive detail slow the pace despite clear, controlled prose.
Deep dive
A hotel that stops being a hotel and becomes an entire enclosed world, read here as the American Dream's logical destination rather than its betrayal.
