Edwin Mullhouse


Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943–1954, by Jeffrey Cartwright is the critically acclaimed debut novel by American author Steven Millhauser, published in 1972 and written in the form of a biography of a fictitious person by a fictitious author. It was Millhauser's best known novel until the publication of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Martin Dressler in 1997, and according to Patrick McGrath writing in The New York Times it is his best work. Edwin Mullhouse is described by Publishers Weekly as a 'cult novel'.

Plot introduction

Jeffrey Cartwright plays Boswell to Edwin Mullhouse's Johnson, and writes his biography. Edwin is an "eccentric young show-off who fancied himself something of a literary wonder"; he writes a novel at age ten, but dies mysteriously at age eleven.
The biography is divided into three parts:
  1. The Early Years: Aug. 1, 1943 – Aug. 1, 1949: The "pre-literate years" in which Cartwright tells of Edwin's birth and childhood in Newfield, Connecticut including time spent in Kindergarten.
  2. The Middle Years: Aug. 2, 1949 – Aug. 1, 1952: The "literate years" when Edwin attends school; his tragic obsession with Rose Dorn featuring prominently.
  3. The Late Years: Aug. 2, 1952 – Aug. 1, 1954: The "literary years" cover the writing of Edwin's novel Cartoons and his untimely death.

Reception

William Hjortsberg from The New York Times praised the novel, saying it
Hjortsberg concluded that
Zachary Leader in the London Review of Books was also positive, although his review was written some seven years after the book's American publication: