Editing Stanley Elkin

{{short description|American novelist, essayist, and professor}}{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}{{About|the American novelist|the Canadian politician|Stanley Edward Elkin|the American historian|Stanley Elkins|the American mystery writer|Stanley Ellin}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2010}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name        = Stanley Elkin
| image       = Stanley_elkin.jpg
| imagesize   = 203px
| caption     =
| pseudonym   =
| birth_name  = Stanley Lawrence Elkin
| birth_date  = May 11, 1930
| birth_place = New York City, U.S.
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1995|5|31|1930|5|11}}
| death_place = [[St. Louis, Missouri]], U.S.
| occupation  = Novelist, professor
| period      = 1950–1995
| genre       =
| subject     =
| movement    =
| signature   =
| website     =
}}

'''Stanley Lawrence Elkin''' (May 11, 1930 – May 31, 1995)<ref>{{cite book |last1=Bezner|first1=Kevin|editor1-first=Philip A.|editor1-last=Greasley|title=Dictionary of Midwestern Literature |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnuYKJSoHCMC&pg=PP1|volume=One: The Authors |access-date=June 3, 2010 |year=2001|publisher=Indiana University Press|location=Bloomington, IN |isbn=0-253-33609-0|page=172 |chapter=Stanley (Lawrence) Elkin|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnuYKJSoHCMC&pg=PA172}}</ref> was an American [[novelist]], [[short story]] writer, and [[essay]]ist. His extravagant, satirical fiction revolves around American [[consumerism]], [[popular culture]], and [[Heterosexuality|male-female relationships]].

==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>

==Works==

===Novels===
* ''Boswell: A Modern Comedy'' (1964)
* ''A Bad Man'' (1967)
* ''The Dick Gibson Show'' (1971)
* ''The Franchiser'' (1976)
* ''The Living End'' (novella) (1979) {{ISBN|978-0525070207}}
* ''[[George Mills (novel)|George Mills]]'' (1982)
* ''The Magic Kingdom'' (1985)
* ''The Rabbi of Lud'' (1987)
* ''The MacGuffin'' (1991) {{ISBN|978-0671673246}}
* ''[[Mrs. Ted Bliss]]'' (1995)

===Story collections===
* ''Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers'' (1966)
* ''Early Elkin'' (1985)

===Novella collections===
* ''Searches and Seizures'' (1973) (U.K. title: ''Eligible Men'' (1974))
* ''Van Gogh's Room at Arles'' (1993)

===Other works===
* "A Prayer for Losers", from the ''Why Work'' Series (edited by [[Gordon Lish]]) (1966)
* ''Stanley Elkin's Greatest Hits'' (anthology; foreword by [[Robert Coover]]) (1980)
* ''The Six-Year-Old Man'' (screenplay) (1987)
* ''Pieces of Soap'' (collected essays) (1992)

===Limited editions===
* ''The First George Mills''  (Part One of ''George Mills''; 376 copies, all signed by Elkin and the illustrator, Jane E. Hughes) (1980)
* ''Why I Live Where I Live'' (essay; 30 unnumbered copies) (1983)
* ''The Coffee Room'' (radio play; 95 copies, all signed by Elkin and the illustrator, [[Michael McCurdy]]) (1987)

===Audio===
* "A Poetics for Bullies", read by [[Jackson Beck]], with comments by Elkin, in ''New Sounds in American Fiction'', Program 10. (edited by Gordon Lish) (1969)

===As editor===
* ''Stories From the Sixties'' (1971)
* ''[[The Best American Short Stories|The Best American Short Stories 1980]]'' (with Shannon Ravenel) (1980)

== Awards ==
* 1995 – [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] for ''Mrs. Ted Bliss''
* 1994 – [[PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction|PEN/Faulkner Award]] finalist for ''Van Gogh's Room at Arles''
* 1991 – [[National Book Award]] finalist for Fiction for ''The MacGuffin''
* 1982 – [[National Book Critics Circle Award]] for ''George Mills''

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* {{OL author}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130105111210/http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/elkin.html The Stanley Elkin Papers at Washington University in St. Louis]
* {{cite journal|url=http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3712/the-art-of-fiction-no-61-stanley-elkin|journal=The Paris Review|title=Stanley Elkin, The Art of Fiction No. 61 |date=Summer 1976 |author=Thomas LeClair|volume=Summer 1976 |issue=66 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080512033009/http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/interviews/show/70 Interview at the Dalkey Archive (formerly the Center for Book Culture)]
* [https://www.loyola.edu/academics/english/faculty/dougherty-david/stanley-elkin.html Full Bibliography via Loyola University]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ9qKrenNcI Stanley Elkin interviewed by Stephen Banker, circa 1978]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elkin, Stanley}}
[[Category:1930 births]]
[[Category:1995 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American essayists]]
[[Category:20th-century American Jews]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:American male essayists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American male short story writers]]
[[Category:American tax resisters]]
[[Category:Jewish American essayists]]
[[Category:Jewish American novelists]]
[[Category:Jewish American short story writers]]
[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]]
[[Category:Novelists from Illinois]]
[[Category:Novelists from Missouri]]
[[Category:Novelists from New York City]]
[[Category:PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners]]
[[Category:People from St. Louis County, Missouri]]
[[Category:People with multiple sclerosis]]
[[Category:University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni]]
[[Category:Washington University in St. Louis faculty]]
[[Category:Writers from Brooklyn]]
[[Category:Writers from Chicago]]
[[Category:National Book Critics Circle Award winners]]