From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Martin Dressler comes a stunningly original new book set in a Connecticut town over one incredible summer night. The delicious cast of characters includes a band of teenage girls who break into homes and si "Moonlit, entrancing.... [Millhauser is] master of a prose that doesn't merely aspire to the condition of music but actually achieves it." — The Washington Post Book World                         "Writing in tableaux as concise as magic spells ... Millhauser is at his poetic best." — Los Angeles Times "Lovely ... a mini-opera.... the collective dramas that make up [ Enchanted Night ] are strikingly aural, visual and emblematic. . . . [Millhauser's] prose remains consistently sensual and rhythmic, alive with color." — Newsday " Enchanted Night feels teeming, complete and note perfect." — Chicago Tribune From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Martin Dressler comes a stunningly original new book set in a Connecticut town over one incredible summer night. The delicious cast of characters includes a band of teenage girls who break into homes and simply leave notes reading "We Are Your Daughters," a young woman who meets a phantom lover on the tree swing in her back yard, a beautiful mannequin who steps down from her department store window, and all the dolls "no longer believed in," left abandoned in the attic, who magically come to life. With each new book, Steven Millhauser radically stretches not only the limits of fiction but also of his seemingly limitless abilities. Enchanted Night is a remarkable piece of fiction, a compact tale of loneliness and desire that is as hypnotic and rich as the language Millhauser uses to weave it. "This is the night of revelation. This is the night the dolls wake. This is the night of the dreamer in the attic. This is the night of the piper in the woods". In his dazzling new work, Pulitzer Prize-winner Steven Millhauser presents a stunningly original tale set in a Connecticut town over one incredible summer night. The improbable cast of characters includes a man who flees the attic where he's been writing his magnum opus every night for the past nine years, a band of teenage girls who break into homes and simply leave notes reading "We Are Your Daughters", and a young woman who meets a dream-like lover on the tree swing in her backyard. A beautiful mannequin steps down from her department store window, and all the dolls left abandoned in the attic and "no longer believed in" magically come to life. Enchanted Night is a remarkable piece of fiction, a compact tale of loneliness and desire that is as hypnotic and rich as the language Millhauser uses to weave it. STEVEN MILLHAUSER lives in Saratoga Springs, New York. RESTLESS A hot summer night in southern Connecticut, tide going out and the moon still rising. Laura Engstrom, fourteen years old, sits up in bed and throws the covers off. Her forehead is damp, her hair feels wet. Through the screens of the two half-open windows she can hear a rasp of crickets and a dim rush of traffic on the distant thruway. Five past twelve. Do you know where your children are? The room is so hot that the heat is a hand gripping her throat. Got to move, got to do something. Moonlight is streaming in past the edges of the closed and slightly raised venetian blinds. She can't breathe in this room, in this house. Oh man, do something. Do it. The crickets are growing louder. A smell of cut grass mixes with a salt tang of low tide from the beach four blocks away. She imagines herself out there, on the night beach, low waves breaking, crunch of sand, the lifeguard chairs tall and white and clean under the moon, but the thought disturbs her--she feels exposed, a girl in moonlight, out in the open, spied on. She doesn't want anyone to look at her. No one is allowed to think about her body. But she can't stay in her room, oh no. If she doesn't do something right away, this second, she'll scream. The inside of her skin itches. Her bones itch. So how do you scratch your bones? Laura steps onto the braided throw rug beside her bed and pulls on her jeans. They are so tight that she has to suck in her flat stomach to get the hole over the copper button. She pulls off her nightgown and puts on a white T-shirt--no bra--and a denim jacket with a lump in one pocket: half a roll of Life Savers. She has to get out of there, she has to breathe. If you don't breathe, you're dead. The room is killing her. She won't go far. CHORUS OF NIGHT VOICES This is the night of revelation. This is the night the dolls wake. This is the night of the dreamer in the attic. This is the night of the piper in the woods. THE MAN IN THE ATTIC At exactly midnight by his strapless watch, Haverstraw puts down his No. 2 hexagonal yellow pencil beside his spiral-bound notebook, which he leaves open on the desk, and leans back in his chair. For a moment he feels dizzy, and grips the edge of the desk; it is hot in the attic room, and the a