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Stanley Elkin (May 11, 1930 - May 31, 1995) was the author of extravagant, satirical novels revolving about American consumerism, popular culture and male-female relationships.
Elkin was born in Brooklyn, New York, and grew up in Chicago from age 3 onwards. 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 served in the U.S. Army from 1955-57.) 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.
During his career, Elkin wrote 17 books: ten novels, two volumes of novellas, one book of short stories, one collection of essays, and three published scripts. Elkin's work revolves about American pop culture, which it portrays in innumerable darkly comic variations. Characters take full precedence over plot. His language throughout is extravagant and exuberant, baroque and magnificently flowery, taking fantastic flight from his characters' endless patter. "He was like a jazz artist who would go off on riffs," said William Gass. The novels are at once both highly artistic and immensely entertaining, though at times their essential sadness becomes almost unbearable. In a review of George Mills, Ralph B. Sipper wrote, "Elkin's trademark is to tightrope his way from comedy to tragedy with hardly a slip."
Elkin's novel George Mills won the 1982 National Book Award, and his last novel, Mrs. Ted Bliss, won the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award. However, although he enjoyed high critical praise, his books have never enjoyed popular success.
Elkin died May 31, 1995 of a heart attack. His manuscripts and correspondence are archived at the Washington University in St. Louis library.
He has a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.
Works
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Boswell: A Modern Comedy (1964)
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Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers (1966)
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A Bad Man (1967)
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The Dick Gibson Show (1971)
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Searches and Seizures (1973) [published in the U.K. in 1974 as Eligible Men]
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The Franchiser (1976)
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The Living End (1979)
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Stanley Elkin's Greatest Hits (1980) [Foreword by Robert Coover]
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The First George Mills (1980) [A limited edition of 376 copies, all signed by the author and the illustrator, Jane E. Hughes.]
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George Mills (1982)
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Why I Live Where I Live (1983) [A limited edition of 30 copies]
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The Magic Kingdom (1985)
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Early Elkin (1985)
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The Six-Year-Old Man (1987)
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The Coffee Room (1987) [A limited edition of 95, all signed by the author and the illustrator, Michael McCready.]
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The Rabbi of Lud (1987)
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The MacGuffin (1991)
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Pieces of Soap (1992)
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Van Gogh's Room at Arles (1992)
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Mrs. Ted Bliss (1995)
Books edited by Stanley Elkin
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