American Fiction, Jewish Fiction & Literature, Humorous Fiction

Boswell/a Modern Comedy

Name: Boswell/a Modern Comedy
Author: Stanley Elkin
ISBN: 9780525481317

by Stanley Elkin

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Overview

Boswell is Stanley Elkin's first and funniest novel: the comic odyssey of a twentieth-century groupie who collects celebrities as his insurance policy against death. James Boswell - strong man, professional wrestler (his most heroic match is with the Angel of Death) - is a con man, gate crasher, and moocher of epic talent. He is also a man on the make for all the great men of his time - his logic being that if you can't be a lion, know a pride of them. Can he cheat his way out of morality?

About the Author, Stanley Elkin

Stanley Elkin (1930–1995) was an award-winning author of novels, short stories, and essays. Born in the Bronx, Elkin received his BA and PhD from the University of Illinois and in 1960 became a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis where he taught until his death. His critically acclaimed works include the National Book Critics Circle Award–winners George Mills (1982) and Mrs. Ted Bliss (1995), as well as the National Book Award finalists The Dick Gibson Show (1972), Searches and Seizures (1974), and The MacGuffin (1991). His book of novellas, Van Gogh’s Room at Arles, was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award.

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Editorials

Book Week

It is clear that Elkin writes marvelously well. Humor explodes in bursts. Scenes crackle with gusto and imaginative fertility, and his people pop off the page with overabundant flesh.

New York Times Book Review

Brilliant. . . . His sentences are long riffs of jazz; the words swarm and gather; the prose is exuberantly betroped, exhilaratingly de trop.

Time

One of America's most inventive comic writers.

Library Journal

Elkin's debut novel (1964) is a comic romp through the life of title character James Boswell, a con man and champion moocher. Although his works are serious underneath, Elkin is always good for a laugh. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.