SOURCE: Curran, Ronald. Review of Millroy the Magician, by Paul Theroux. World Literature Today 69, no. 4 (autumn 1995): 797–98.

In the following negative review, Curran asserts that Jilly's characterization and the narrative of Millroy the Magician are underdeveloped.

Paul Theroux has built his reputation, in part, on his talent for creating eccentric characters whose capacity to stimulate imagination radically engages our willingness to suspend disbelief. V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, and Gore Vidal feel he has accomplished that in their dust-jacket “advance praise” for Millroy the Magician. But I fear a “conspiracy” similar to the one in the novel which brings down Millroy's growing chain of health-food restaurants. Like all too many contemporary novels measuring an inch and a quarter or more in thickness, Millroy suffers from downsizing in the editing industry as well as from an uncritical infatuation with the two main characters and their dialogues.

The result is an...