Editing Stanley Elkin (section)

==Biography==
Elkin was born to a Jewish family in [[Brooklyn]], [[New York (state)|New York]], and grew up in [[Chicago]] from age three onwards.<ref name="ShatzkyTaub1997">{{cite book|last1=Shatzky|first1=Joel|last2=Taub|first2=Michael|title=Contemporary Jewish-American Novelists: A Bio-critical Sourcebook|url=https://archive.org/details/contemporaryjewi0000shat|url-access=registration|year=1997|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-29462-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/contemporaryjewi0000shat/page/64 64]}}</ref> He did both his undergraduate and graduate work at the [[University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign]], receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1961 for his dissertation on [[William Faulkner]]. During this period he was drafted and served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957. In 1953 Elkin married Joan Marion Jacobson. He was a member of the English faculty at [[Washington University in St. Louis]] from 1960 until his death, and battled [[multiple sclerosis]] for most of his adult life. In 1968, he signed the "[[Writers and Editors War Tax Protest]]" pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.<ref>{{cite news|title=Writers and Editors War Tax Protest |date=January 30, 1968 |newspaper=[[New York Post]]}}</ref>

During his career, Elkin published ten novels, two volumes of novellas, two books of short stories, a collection of essays, and one (unproduced) screenplay. Elkin's work revolves about American pop culture, which it portrays in innumerable [[black comedy|darkly comic]] variations. Characters and especially prose style take full precedence over plot. His language is extravagant and exuberant, baroque and flowery, taking fantastic flight from his characters' endless patter. "He was like a jazz artist who would go off on riffs," said critic, writer, and Washington University colleague [[William Gass]]. In a review of ''[[George Mills (novel)|George Mills]]'', Ralph B. Sipper wrote, "Elkin's trademark is to tightrope his way from comedy to tragedy with hardly a slip." About the influence of ethnicity on his work Elkin said he admired most "the writers who are stylists, Jewish or not. Bellow is a stylist, and he is Jewish. William Gass is a stylist, and he is not Jewish. What I go for in my work is language."

Although living in the Midwest, Elkin spent his childhood and teenage summers in a bungalow colony called West Oakland,<ref name=nytimes>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/29/nyregion/about-books.html |date=November 29, 1987 |title=About Books |last=Horner |first=Shirley |website=[[The New York Times]] |access-date=2015-10-26}}</ref> on the Ramapo River in northern New Jersey not far from Mahwah, the home of [[Joyce Kilmer]]. This was a refuge for a close-knit group of several score families, mostly Jewish, from the summer heat of New York City and urban New Jersey. Elkin's writings placed in New Jersey were informed by this experience.<ref name=nytimes />

Elkin won the [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] on two occasions: for ''[[George Mills (novel)|George Mills]]'' in 1982 and for ''[[Mrs. Ted Bliss]]'', his last novel, in 1995. ''The MacGuffin'' was a finalist for the 1991 [[National Book Award]] for Fiction. However, although he enjoyed high critical praise, his books have never enjoyed popular success. The 1976 [[Jack Lemmon]] film ''[[Alex & the Gypsy]]'' was based on Elkin's novella "The Bailbondsman".

Elkin died May 31, 1995, of a heart attack, twenty days after his 65th birthday. His manuscripts and correspondence are archived in [[Washington University Libraries|Olin Library]] at [[Washington University in St. Louis]]. Elkin's literary legacy is represented by the literary agency headed by [[Georges Borchardt]].

He has a star on the [[St. Louis Walk of Fame]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/?view=achievement |title=St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees |publisher=St. Louis Walk of Fame |access-date=25 April 2013 |archive-date=31 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121031162946/http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/?view=achievement |url-status=dead }}</ref>