Steven Millhauser has a unique writing style that seamlessly combines traditional realist prose with mildly fantastical premises. He is particularly good at describing small-town American life and how people react to slightly absurd situations such as the discovery of a dead mermaid or the appearance of benign phantoms. Many of the stories in this collection share a common theme: mysterious intimations of something supernatural provoke the residents of a town to ponder the meaning of their lives.
In "Miracle Polish," a man buys a bottle of mirror polish (from a strange door-to-door salesman, of course) that makes his reflection look like "a man who believed in things." In "Phantoms," people occasionally see apparitions who "are not easy to distinguish from ordinary citizens" and look at them before quietly and swiftly withdrawing. "The Place" is a hillside outside of town where people just feel free from the normal pressures of their lives.
I am very fond of the tone and atmosphere of Millhauser's stories –– I've also read We Others, Martin Dressler, and Little Kingdoms –– but they often lack a satisfying conclusion. The stories in the back half of Voices in the Night are rather vague in their details ("it was like an empty room you could put things in") or feel purposeless.
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