Martin Dressler

Last updated
Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
MartinDressler.jpg
First edition
Author Steven Millhauser
Cover artistHoni Werner
Country United States
Language English
Publisher Crown Publishers
Publication date
1996
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)

Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer is a 1996 novel by Steven Millhauser. It won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction [1] and was a finalist for the 1996 National Book Award. [2] The novel follows the exploits of a young, optimistic entrepreneur, the eponymous Martin Dressler, in late nineteenth century New York City. It vividly evokes its time and place through elaborate description.

Contents

Plot summary

From humble beginnings as an assistant in his immigrant father's cigar shop, Martin begins employment as a bellboy at the Vanderlyn hotel. He rises through its hierarchy through promotions, due to his reputation as a bright, conscientious worker. When he is offered the position of assistant manager, he quits to focus instead on managing a chain of restaurants. Later, he builds his own new concept for an extravagant hotel, the Hotel Dressler.

He finds a friend and business partner in sister-in-law Emmeline Vernon, while his ambiguous, distant marriage to her withdrawn sister, Caroline, is a source of confusion and disappointment. A focus of the novel is Martin's imagination for grand, sweeping business ideas, and his instinctive sense for orchestrating large systems. Through all this Martin has the persistent feeling that there must be something bigger waiting around the next corner. One of the novel's themes is that emptiness may lie behind the ideal of the American Dream.

Related Research Articles

John Irving American novelist and screenwriter

John Winslow Irving is an American-Canadian novelist and screenwriter.

Louise Erdrich American author (born 1954)

Louise Erdrich is an American author of novels, poetry, and children's books featuring Native American characters and settings. She is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, a federally recognized tribe of the Anishinaabe.

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction American award for distinguished novels

The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during the preceding calendar year. As the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, it was one of the original Pulitzers; the program was inaugurated in 1917 with seven prizes, four of which were awarded that year.

Philip Roth American novelist (1933–2018)

Philip Milton Roth was an American novelist and short story writer.

Richard Powers American novelist

Richard Powers is an American novelist whose works explore the effects of modern science and technology. His novel The Echo Maker won the 2006 National Book Award for Fiction. He has also won many other awards over the course of his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship. As of 2021, Powers has published thirteen novels and has taught at the University of Illinois and Stanford University. He won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Overstory.

Richard Ford American author

Richard Ford is an American novelist and short story writer. His best-known works are the novel The Sportswriter and its sequels, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land and Let Me Be Frank With You, and the short story collection Rock Springs, which contains several widely anthologized stories. Ford received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1996 for Independence Day. Ford's novel Wildlife was adapted into a 2018 film of the same name. He won the 2018 Park Kyong-ni Prize.

American literature Literature written or related to the United States

American literature is literature predominantly written or produced in English in the United States of America and its preceding colonies. Before the founding of the United States, the Thirteen Colonies on the eastern coast of the present-day United States were heavily influenced by British literature. The American literary tradition thus is part of the broader tradition of English-language literature. A small amount of literature exists in other immigrant languages. Furthermore a rich tradition of oral storytelling exists amongst Native American tribes.

Russell Banks American writer of fiction and poetry

Russell Banks is an American writer of fiction and poetry. As a novelist, Banks is best known for his "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". His stories usually revolve around his own childhood experiences, and often reflect "moral themes and personal relationships".

Colson Whitehead American novelist (born 1969)

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of eight novels, including his 1999 debut work The Intuitionist and The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020 for The Nickel Boys. He has also published two books of non-fiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Genius Grant.

Chang-Rae Lee Korean-American novelist

Chang-rae Lee is a Korean-American novelist and a professor of creative writing at Stanford University. He was previously Professor of Creative Writing at Princeton and director of Princeton's Program in Creative Writing.

Anthony Doerr American author

Anthony Doerr is an American author of novels and short stories. He gained widespread recognition for his 2014 novel All the Light We Cannot See, which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

A listing of the Pulitzer Prize award winners for 1997:

Junot Díaz Dominican-American writer, academic, and editor

Junot Díaz is a Dominican-American writer, creative writing professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and was fiction editor at Boston Review. He also serves on the board of advisers for Freedom University, a volunteer organization in Georgia that provides post-secondary instruction to undocumented immigrants. Central to Díaz's work is the immigrant experience, particularly the Latino immigrant experience.

Oscar Hijuelos American novelist

Oscar Jerome Hijuelos was an American novelist.

Darrell Schweitzer American writer, editor, and critic (born 1952)

Darrell Charles Schweitzer is an American writer, editor, and critic in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy. Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres.

Steven Millhauser is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the 1997 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Martin Dressler.

Adam Johnson (writer) American novelist and short story writer (born 1967)

Adam Johnson is an American novelist and short story writer. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2012 novel, The Orphan Master's Son, and the National Book Award for his 2015 story collection Fortune Smiles. He is also a professor of English at Stanford University with a focus on creative writing.

<i>The Goldfinch</i> (novel) 2013 novel by Donna Tartt

The Goldfinch is a novel by the American author Donna Tartt. It won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, among other honors. Published in 2013, it was Tartt's first novel since The Little Friend in 2002.

<i>Do Not Say We Have Nothing</i> 2016 novel by Madeleine Thien

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a novel by Madeleine Thien published in 2016 in Canada. It follows a 10-year-old girl and her mother who invite a Chinese refugee into their home. Critically acclaimed, in 2016 the author was awarded both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for this novel. It was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize as well as the Women's Prize for Fiction.

<i>The Nickel Boys</i> 2019 novel by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist Colson Whitehead. It is based on the real story of the Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and had its history exposed by a university investigation. It was named one of TIME's best books of the decade. It is the follow-up to Whitehead's 2016 novel The Underground Railroad, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

References

  1. "Fiction". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 14 January 2014.
  2. "National Book Awards - 1996". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 14 January 2014.