In the Penny Arcade (collection)

In the Penny Arcade is a collection of six short stories and a novella by Steven Millhauser published in 1986 by Alfred A. Knopf.

Stories

Selected original periodical publications and dates indicated.

Part I

• "August Eschenburg" (Antaeus, Spring 1984)

Part II

• "A Protest Against the Sun" (The New Yorker, August 31, 1981)
• "The Sledding Party" (The New Yorker, December 5, 1982)
• "A Day in the Country" (Grand Street, Autumn 1984

Part III

• "Snowmen" (Grand Street, Winter 1984)
• "In the Penny Arcade" (The Hudson Review, Summer 1984)
• "Cathay" (Grand Street, Summer 1982)

Reception

Commending Millhauser for his "assurance and skill" in handling an array of literary genres, New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani reports stylistic influences ranging from those of Thomas Mann to J. D. Salinger. Kakutani adds this caveat:

New York Times reviewer Robert Dunn writes:

Kirkus Reviews detects a thematic limitation in the collection's stories in which only "adolescence and miniaturization." are Millhauser's concerns: "[T]he potential for exhaustion of this double theme that becomes all too apparent." The reviewer concludes:

Retrospective appraisal

Describing Millhauser as "a very late modernist", biographer Earl G. Ingersoll places the collection stylistically among the great fiction authors of the early 20th century:

Ingersoll adds "Millhauser's melding of realism and fantasy has been called 'Magic Realism'"

Theme

Literary critic Dinitia Smith at The New York Times reports that the themes in "a typical Millhauser book" reveal his "obsession with popular culture, with labyrinths and dreams, and portraying a world in which the real and the fabricated have become intermingled."

Kakutani sums up the primary elements of the stories:

Footnotes

Sources

• Dunn, Robert. 1986. FIRST LOVE AND THE LAST AUTOMATONS The New York Times, January 19, 1986. Accessed 14 April 2025.
• Ingersoll, Earl G. 2010. Steven Millhauser, a Very Late Modernist in Journal of the Short Story in English, Les Cahiers de la nouvelle. Spring, 2010. Accessed 16 April 2025.
• Ingersoll, Earl G. 2014. Understanding Steven Millhauser. University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC.
• Kakutani, Michiko. 1986. Perceptions of Marvels The New York Times, January 11, 1986. Accessed 15 April 2025.
• Millhauser, Steven. 1985. In the Penny Arcade. Alfred A. Knopf.
• Smith, Dinitia. 1997. Shy Author Likes to Live And Work In Obscurity The New York Times, April 9, 1997. Accessed 14 April 2025.