Synopses & Reviews
These nine stories reveal a dazzling variety of styles, tones and subject matter. Among them are some of Stanley Elkin's finest, including the fabulistic "On a Field, Rampant," the farcical "Perlmutter at the East Pole," and the stylized "A Poetics for Bullies." Despite the diversity of their form and matter, each of these stories shares Elkin's nimble, comic, antic imagination, a dedication to the value of form and language, and a concern with a single theme: the tragic inadequacy of a simplistic response to life.
Review
"Virtually any story in this collection contains more art than 98% of the thousands of novels published in this country in the past five years. Elkin's stories are fully realized expressions of the comic sense of tragedy." Life
Review
"I've spent days reading (and rereading) these superb stories. There are indeed some giants in the English language, and I now count Elkin among them." New Republic
Review
"These nine stories have no missteps, nothing that does not contribute to the artfulness of the storytelling." Chicago Tribune
Review
"Stanley Elkin is one of the bigs of American comic fiction, which puts him in a small room with wonderful company. His work is funny and moral and wildly adventurous, and this early rambunctious collection will please admirers of The Dick Gibson Show and The Living End." Garrison Keillor
Review
"A master storyteller of formidable imagination and stunning insight. His stories sparkle." National Observer
Review
"Stanley Elkin has a remarkable talent, composed of many important virtues: originality, wit, insight, an unusually sharp eye for irony, verbal exuberance, precision, detachment. I did not read one of his nine stories without absorption, even renewed expectation." The New York Times Book Review
Synopsis
-- This collection of vintage Elkin brings together nine tragicomic tales of hard-luck cases and ordinary schmucks steeling themselves against the absurdities of everyday life, all written with Elkin's exuberant wordplay in a perfectly pitched prose.
-- Stanley Elkin, a two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and three-time nominee for the National Book Award is widely considered one of the most important writers of the contemporary period. His works include The Franchiser, George Mills, and Mrs. Ted Bliss.
-- First published by Random House ('66), most recent paperback by Thunder's Mouth Press ('90).
Synopsis
"This imagination of Elkin's sneaks up, tickles, surprises, shocks and kills. It makes stories that are deadly funny."--The New York Times
About the Author
Stanley Elkin--a two-time recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award--is widely regarded as one of America's most important contemporary writers. During his lifetime he wrote more than a dozen novels and short-story collections, including The Magic Kingdom, The Franchiser, and The Dick Gibson Show.