The Review of Contemporary Fiction

The King in the Tree, by Steven Millhauser
reviewed by Christopher Paddock

Steven Millhauser. The King in the Tree. Knopf, 2003. 224 pp. $23.00.

Steven Millhauser’s work has always had a romantic quality about it. His characters are dreamers who revel in the wonderment of imagination or are victimized by their own obsessions. But readers expecting surreal, subterranean landscapes and a longing for nostalgia may be heartbroken, for the three brilliant novellas that comprise The King in the Tree are all tear-jerkers of sorts, each a variation on the theme of heartache: these are tales of love lost, betrayed, or unrequited. Revenge is a powerful tale of shattered identity and betrayal. As the narrator leads a potential buyer through her charming old house, she reminisces about the times she shared with her recently deceased husband. As she moves from the kitchen to the back porch, from the study to the guest bedroom, she gradually reveals enough to make her guest, and the reader, increasingly uncomfortable, creating a dynamic tension that carries through to the end of the story. An Adventure of Don Juan finds the hero of the title in search of new conquests. After becoming restless with his promiscuous lifestyle in Venice, he travels north to England in search of more meaningful relations. The pace and intimacy of his surroundings force him to delve inward and lead him to question his self-worth. The title novella is also set in the world of medieval fantasy. It is a retelling of the story of Tristan and Ysolt, a tragedy of deception and deprival. Millhauser’s version is a strained love triangle in which the king, his queen (Ysolt), and his nephew (Tristan) are all perpetually denied the object of their affection. Much that is here is what you might anticipate from Millhauser—his writing is perceptive and startlingly efficient, and there are yet elaborate underground structures to wander through. Such detail, however, works to support more intimate, if not tragic, discoveries.