Full name: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer

Author: Steven Millhauser Year: 1996 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: Award winners, Fiction, Historical fiction Purchase/reserch links: Goodreads Amazon LibraryThing ISBNs: 9780679781271 0679781277

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. Similar books: Ironweed by William Kennedy Rabbit at Rest by John Updike Independence Day by Richard Ford Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. Billy Bathgate by E. L. Doctorow Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie The Waterworks by E. L. Doctorow The Assistant by Bernard Malamud The Fixer by Bernard Malamud Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington The Late George Apley by John P. Marquand The Help by Kathryn Stockett A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead