SOURCE: Saroyan, Aram. “The Surreal as Substance.” Los Angeles Times (30 September 1990): 11.

In the following mixed review of The Barnum Museum, Saroyan praises the wit and imagination of the stories in the collection, but contends that Millhauser tries too hard to emulate the style of such postmodern writers as Donald Barthelme.

In more than a few of the 10 stories that comprise The Barnum Museum it's as if a prodigious, bizarre and photographic imagination is struggling mightily to pin itself to the mat of the post-modern story as practiced, for example, by the late Donald Barthelme. Steven Millhauser does his best to distance his art, to make it cool in the manner of accomplished predecessors, but the effect is sometimes like seeing a gorgeous butterfly—say a tiger swallow—mounted under glass, and then catching a slight twitch in one of its wings.

He can be witty. “Klassik Komix n...