The King in the Tree: Three Novellas Book

In The King in the Tree, Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Millhauser's brilliant collection of three novellas, there's one human constant: deception. The lovers in these three long stories range from a contemporary American housewife to the legendary Don Juan to Tristan and Ysolt, but the love affairs recounted here never add up to a simple geometry of two. In "Revenge," a frightening monologue, a widow gives a tour of her house to her dead husband's mistress. In "An Adventure of Don Juan," that hot-blooded Spaniard heads to the cooler climes of England and unwittingly turns a love triangle into more of a love square. This tale is set in a country manor and has the lapidary beauty of a Gainsborough painting. If the first two stories are exquisitely done, the retelling of Tristan and Ysolt is a small masterpiece. The story of the lovers is recorded by Thomas of Cornwall, advisor to the king and reluctant protector of illicit love. He closes the book with these words, which could be a description of Millhauser himself: "I, Thomas of Cornwall, prince of parchment, lord of black ink, king of all space, summoner of souls, guardian of ghosts, friend of the pear tree and the silence of waves, companion to all those who watch in the night." This book joins Jane Stevenson's Several Deceptions and John Fowles's The Ebony Tower on the short shelf of magical novella collections. --Claire Dederer, Amazon.comRead More