Here is a Pulitzer-winning book that I despised. This just goes to show how incredibly personal taste in fiction is, because it is not easy to win the Pulitzer, and objectively speaking I can see that this is good writing, but god, I just found it irritating. It has a lot of lists. I don’t think there is any object in nineteenth century New York he does not list. I guess this could be called dense world building. I found it annoying. It tells about a young man who has a drive for success and gets rich off building hotels while mysteriously marrying a woman who is obviously unsuited to him. I mean: why? I could not get it. I’d also whacked my head hard on a car door and was icing it for much of the reading so perhaps that came into it.
MARTIN DRESSLER by Steven Millhauser
