Beneath the Cellars of Our Town by Steven Millhauser _1998_
Summary Non Spoiler
Summary: This story describes the subterranean homesick blues. I am not sure if this story takes place in an actual place, or it takes place in the back country of our mind. Millhauser does not make this clear. The author focuses the story not on action or conflict resolution, but on describing a milieu (the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops.) I am searching within the back-steps of my mind, stumbling down the stairs, leading to my filthy cellar, because my mind is attempting to find conflict.
First Sentence of Story
Beneath the cellars of our town, far down, there lies a maze of twisting and intersecting passageways, stretching away in every direction and connected to the upper surface by the stairways rough stone.
Quote
One might argue that the aisles of a supermarket, bursting with colour, are far more exciting than our dull world below.
Last Sentence of Story
You who mock us, you laughers and surface crawlers, you restless sideways-sliders and flatland voyagers - don't we irk you, don't we exasperate you, we mole-folk, we pale amphibians?
What I learned about Writing
Milieu: Leaving things only in the milieu creates tension in itself, because we are searching for the normal patterns of writing.
Tidbits
- The underground world delineated in "Beneath the Cellars of Our Town" recalls the author's 1986 novel, "From the Realm of Morpheus," which described a series of subterranean kingdoms.
Where to Find It
I read it in Millhauser's book The Knife Thrower published in 1998 by Crown.
Beneath the Cellars of Our Town by Steven Millhauser _1998_
