I wondered how it was that I had never heard of this book and its extraordinarily promising young author. I asked around, but no one seemed to know or remember Millen Brand, or his books. It’s somewhat frightening to learn that good books – even books heralded in their time – can disappear so quickly and completely.
[. . .]
All of Brand’s work is modest and sincere, two qualities that are undervalued, if not dismissed, in modern fiction . . . Despite the titillating claims of the paperback reprints, there is nothing sensational about The Outward Room. Its power comes from its tenderness and quiet. As Brand himself observes, near the end of the book, ‘the evidences of winter were small, only to be seen, like the signs of spring, by the heart that feels small changes.’
– Peter Cameron, in the afterword to The Outward Room
When it comes to books, I tend to rely unquestioningly on the recommendations of my friend Amy. It isn’t that I dismiss other recommendations outright or find no value in them. It’s just that, somehow, Amy intuits what kind of book will fire up the electrical connections in my brain like no other. It’s especially impressive to me because people’s taste in books is so personal, so hard to pinpoint. So I have to publicly thank her for recommending The Outward Room to me.
I long ago realized I was terrible at book reviews, so I will let the above quotes from the book’s afterword stand in for my own words.