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Stanley Elkin Bibliography

Stanley ElkinThis is the online bibliography for Shouting Down the Silence: A Biography of Stanley Elkin, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2010. All citations from that book refer to this bibliography.

Readers seeking the most thorough bibliography of works by and about Elkin are advised to consult William H,. Robins, Stanley Elkin: A Comprehensive Bibliography  (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009), to which, along with its 1986 predecessor, this bibliography is greatly indebted.

Figure 1: Elkin in 1989, photo copyright 1991 by David C. Dougherty

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Novels

Boswell: A Modern Comedy. New York: Random House, 1964; London: Hamish Hamilton, 1964; New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1967; New York: Warner Books, 1980; New York: Dutton Obelisk, 1986; Thunder’s Mouth Press; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 1999.

Published Separately

  • “Boswell Steps Out,” Esquire, July 1964: 64-69, 96, 98-99.
  • “The Great Sandusky,” Paris Review 32 (1964): 78-91. Paris Review Prize for Humor.
  • “The Transient,” The Saturday Evening Post, 25 Apr 1964: 54-60.
  • “The Transient,” Best American Short Stories 1965.  Ed. Martha Foley.  Boston: Houghton-Mifflin. 1965.
  • “The Transient.” Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits.  New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980.

A Bad Man. New York: Random House, 1967; London: Anthony Blond, 1968;  New York: Berkeley Publishing, 1971; New York: Warner Books, 1980; New York: Dutton Obelisk, 1984;  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2003, foreword by David C. Dougherty.

Translations

  • Warui Otoko. Tokoy Shincho-Sha, 1971.  Translator: Terakado Yasuhiko.
  • Un Sale Type. Paris: Henri Veryer, 1977.  Translator: Jean-Pierre Carasso,

Published Separately

  • “Everything Must Go!”  The Saturday Evening Post, 31 Jul 1965: 50-54, 56-57.
  • “The Garbage Dump,” The Saturday Evening Post 22 Apr 1967: 60-62.
  • “The Merchant of New Desires,” The Saturday Evening Post 6 May 1967: 70-72, 74, 76.
  • “Feldman and Son,” Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits.  New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980.

The Dick Gibson Show. New York: Random House, 1971; London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1971; New York: Pocket Books, 1972; New York: Warner books, 1980; New York: Dutton Obelisk, 1983; Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1991; Normal, IL:  Dalkey Archive, 1998.

Published Separately

  • “An Apprenticeship to Brothers,” Works in Progress: Number One.  New York: Literary Guild of America, 1970.
  • “The Dick Gibson Show,” Dutton Review, no. 1.  Ed. Hal Scharlatt, Robert Brown, and Jerome Charyn. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1970.
  • “The Dodo Bird,” The Iowa Review I (1970): 28-47.
  • “The Memory Expert.” Esquire (May 1970): 152-154, 175-180.
  • “Bernie Perk.” Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980.
  • “Bernie Perk.”   The Best of Modern Humor. Ed. Mordecai Richler.  New York: Knopf, 1983.

The Franchiser. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1976;  Boston: David R. Godine, 1980, foreword by William H. Gass;  New York: Thunder’s Mouth press;  Normal, IL:   Dalkey Archive, 2001, foreword by William H. Gass.

Published Separately

  • “The Franchiser,” Fiction 4 (1975): 32-35.
  • “The Franchiser,” Iowa Review 7 (1976): 108-126.
  • “Mr. Softee.”  Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits.  New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980.

George Mills. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1982.  Dalkey Archive, 2003, foreword by Chris Lehman.

Published Separately

  • "The First George Mills."  Dallas: Pressworks, 1980.  Limited edition of part 1, illustrator Jane E. Hughes.
  • “The First George Mills.”  Antaeus 40/41 (1981): 86-104.
  • “From George Mills: The Cassadaga Section.” Tri-Quarterly 53 (1982): 63-102,
  • “The Griefs.” Perspective.  Dedicatory Issue (1982): 21-24.
  • “The Telethon,” Playboy Sep 1982: 102-103, 222.
  • “George Mills.”  Playboy Nov 1092: 96-100, 186-91. 

The Magic Kingdom. New York: E. P. Duton, 1985, originally published as Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom; New York: Dutton Obelisk, 1983; New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press;  Normal, IL:  Dalkey Archive, 2000, introduction by Rick Moody.

Published Separately

  • “Un Inédit de Stanley Elkin.”  Delta, 20 (Feb 1985): 37-55.

The Rabbi of Lud. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1987.; Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2001.

Published Separately

  • “The Rabbi of Lud.” Chicago October 1986: 196-99, 229-30, 232.

Performed

  • “Notes Toward a Eulogy for Joan Cohen.”  Modern American Dance Company, Univ. of Missouri St. Louis.  Adapted and read by Elkin to accompany interpretative dance, 1987-1988 season.

The MacGuffin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991. Normal. IL: Dalkey Archive, 1999.

Published Separately

  • “The MacGuffin,” Playboy Dec 1990: 118-119, 160, 230-238, 240, 242-243.
  • “Sex: Real or Imagined.” The Penguin Book of Infidelities. Edited by Stephen Brook. London: Viking, 1994: 227-31.

Mrs. Ted Bliss. New York: Hyperion, 1995. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2002.

Published Separately

  • "From Mrs. Ted Bliss.” In the House of Night: A Dream Reader. Edited by Christopher Navratil. San Francisc Chronicle Books 1997: 17-18.

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Collections of Novellas

Searches and Seizures. New York: Random House, 1973; Published as Eligible Men: London: Victor Gollancz, 1974; Boston: David R. Godine, 1973; Alex and the Gypsy: Three Short Novels: Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.  Thunder’s Mouth Press.

Published Separately

  • Alex and the Gypsy. New York: Pocket Books, 1976. A separate issue of “The Bailbondsman” issued in conjunction with the film.
  • “The Condominium,” Works in Progress Number Eight. New York: Literary Guild, 1973.
  • “The Making of Ashenden.” Tri-Quarterly 26 (1973): 42-103.
  • The Making of Ashenden. London: Covent Garden Press, 1972. Limited edition.
  • “The Making of Ashenden.” Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits.  New York: Dutton, 1980.

Film Adaptation

  • Alex and the Gypsy. Based on the novella “The Bailbondsman” by Stanley Elkin. 20th Century Fox Films, 1976. Director, John Korty; producer, Richard Shepherd;  screenplay, Lawrence B. Marcus; Music, Henry Mancini;  Principal Actors, Jack Lemmon, Genevieve Bujold, James Woods.

Stage Adaptation

  • “The Making of Ashenden.”  Adaptation by Larry Sloane.  Performed at Remains Theater, Chicago, October 1990.  Director, Larry Sloane. Principal Actors, Bruce Norris and Martha Lavey.

The Living End. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979; New York: Warner Books, 1980; London: Cape, 1980; London: Virgin Books, 1981; New York: Dutton Obelisk, 1985; Normal. IL: Dalkey Archive, 2004, afterword by Curtis White.

Translations

  • Au Commencement Était la Fin. Paris: Robert Laffont, 1981. Translator: Jean-Pierre Carasso.
  • Himmel und Hölles: auch eine Göttleich Komodie.  Hamburg: Rowholt, 1981. Translator: Charlotte Franke.

Published Separately

  • “The Conventional Wisdom.” New American Review 26. Ed. Ted Solotaroff. New York: Bantam Books, 1977.
  • “The Bottom Line.” Antaeus 28 (1978): 7-30.
  • “The Conventional Wisdom.” The Best American Short Stories 1978. Ed. Ted Solotaroff and Shannon Ravenel. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1978.
  • “The State of the Art.” Tri-Quarterly 44 (1979): 230-259.
  • “The Conventional Wisdom.” Matters of Life and Death: New American Stories. Ed. Tobias Wolff. Green Harbor, MA: Wampeter, 1983.
  • “The Conventional Wisdom.” Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits.  New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980.

Filmscript

  • Galati, Frank. Stanley Elkin’s The Living End: An Adaptation for the Screen. New American Cinema, 1980.  Polish by Stanley Elkin.  Typescript, Olin Library, Washington University, St. Louis.

Van Gogh’s Room at Arles: Three Novellas. New York: Hyperion, 1993. Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive, 2002.

Published Separately

  • “From “Her Sense of Timing.” Staring Back: The Disability Experience from the Inside Out. Ed. Kenny Fries. New York: Plume, 1997.
  • “Her Sense of Timing.” TriQuarterly, 84 (Spring/Summer 1992): 162-245.
  • La Chambre de Van Gogh. Trans. Claire Maniez. Paris: Denoël, 1995
  • La Stanza di Van Gogh ad Arles. Trans Igor Legati.  Torin Einaudi, 1994. “Il Tempismo di Claire” and “La Stanza di Van Gogh ad Arles.”

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Collections of Stories

Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers. New York: Random House, 1966. London: Anthony Blond, 1967; New York: Berkley, 1968; New York: Warner Books, 1980; New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1990, new introduction by Elkin; Normal, IL:  Dalkey Archive, 2000.

Published Separately

  • “In the Alley.” Chicago Review 13 (Winter 1959): 3-25.
  • “Cousin Poor Lesley and the Lousy People.”  Perspective 11 (Spring 1959): 12-30.
  • “Among the Witnesses.” Accent 19 (Autumn 1959): 179-200.
  • “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.” Perspective 12 (Autumn-Winter 1961): 55-80.
  • “I Look Out for Ed Wolfe.”  Esquire, September 1982: 112-117. 161-167.
  • “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.”  Best American Short Stories 1962.  Ed. Martha Foley and David Burnett.  Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1963.
  • “On a Field, Rampant.” Perspective 13 (Spring 1963): 67-100.
  • “Perlmutter at the East Pole.”  Saturday Evening Post 13 February 1959: 46-49, 52, 54, 56-58, 60, 62-63.
  • “A Poetics for Bullies.”  Esquire April 1965: 66-68, 128, 132.
  • “The Guest.”  Paris Review 34 (Spring-Summer 1965): 42-47.
  •  “I Look Out for Ed Wolfe.”  Contemporary American Short Stories. Ed. Douglas and Sylvia Angus. New York: Fawcett, 1967; Ballantine Books, 1983.
  • “On a Field, Rampant.” The Human Commitment: An Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Dan Gold.  Philadelphia: Chilton Book, 1967.
  • “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.” Fiction as Process. Ed. Carl Hartman and Hazard Adams.  New York: Dodd Mead, 1967.
  • “I Look Out for Ed Wolfe.”  How We Live: Contemporary Life in Contemporary Fiction.  Ed. Penny Chaplin Hills and L. Rust Hills. New York: MacMillan, 1968.
  • “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.”  My Name Aloud: Jewish Stories by Jewish Writers.  Ed. Harold Uriel Ribalow.  South Brunswick NJ: T. Yoselof, 1969.
  • “The Guest.” The Single Voice: An Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Jerome Charyn.  Londn: Collier, 1969.
  • “A Poetics for Bullies.” New Sounds in American Fiction. Ed, Gordon Lish.  Menlo Park, CA: Cummings Publishing, 1969.
  • “The Guest.” Love is the Theme. Ed. Douglas and Sylvia Angus.  Greenwich, CT: Fawcett, 1970.
  • “A Poetics for Bullies.”  Collection: Literature for the Seventies.  Ed. Nancy Shingler Messner and Gerald Messner.  Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1972.
  • “Among the Witnesses.”  Accent: An Anthology, 1940-1960. Ed. Daniel Curley, George Scoffas and Charles Shattuck.  Urbana: Univ, if Illinois Press, 1973.
  • “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.”  The Norton Introduction to Literature: Shorter Edition.  Ed. Carl Bain, Jerome Beaty, and J. Paul Hunter. New York: W.W. Norton, 1973.
  • “I Look Out for Ed Wolfe.”  Writer’s Choice. Ed. L. Rust Hills.  New York: David MacKay, 2974. 
  • “A Poetics for Bullies.”  The Challenge of Conflict..  Ed. Paul C. Holmes and Anita J. Lehman.  New York: Harper and Row, 1976.
  • “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.”  Jewish-American Stories.  Ed. Irving Howe.  New York: New American Library, 1977.
  •  “The Meaning of Life” and “Transitory Love” [excerpts from “Perlmutter at the East Pole”]. The Big Book of Jewish Humor.  Ed. William Novak and Moshe Waldoks.  New York: Harper and Row, 1981.
  • “The Guest.”  The Arbor House Celebrity Book of the Greatest Stories Ever Told.  Ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Charles Waugh.  New York: Arbor House, 1983.
  • “I Look Out for Ed Wolfe.”  Great Esquire Fiction: The Finest Stories from the First Fifty Years.  Ed. L. Rust Hills.  New York: Penguin, 1983.
  • “The Guest.”  Paris Review Anthology. Ed. George Plimpton.  W.W. Norton, 1990.
  • “A Poetics for Bullies.” Introduction to the Short Story.  Ed. Robert W. Boynton and Maynard Mack.  NY: Heinemann, 1992.  4th edition.

Adaptations

  • April, Arnold.  “Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.”  Adapted for and performed by the Chicago Jewish Theater, Horwich Kaplan Jewish Community Center Skokie, IL, March-April 1989, director Arnold April.
  • Galati, Frank.  “The Guest.”  N.d. Adapted for and performed at Northwestern University, early 1970s. Director Frank Galati.  Typescript, Olin Library, Washington University.
  • Crowell, Mark.  “The Guest.”  Adapted for and performed by Chamber Theatre, Univ. of Illinois, dir. Mark Crowell.  Performed 1983. Typescript, Olin Library, Washington University.

Early Elkin. Flint, MI: Bamberger Books, 1985. 

  • “Introduction” by Elkin, 1985.
  • “Where I Read What I Read.”  Antaeus 45/46 (1982): 56-65.
  • “A Sound of Distant Thunder.”  Epoch 8 (Winter 1957): 39-57.
  • “The Party.”  Views 4 (1957): 37-51.
  • “Fifty Dollars.”  Southwest Review 47 (1962): 41-60.
  • “The Graduate Seminar.”  Fiction 1 (1972): 10-11.

Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits. Introduction by Robert Coover. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980.

  • “The Making of Ashenden.”  Searches and Seizures, 1973.
  • “Feldman and Son.” A Bad Man, 1967.
  • “Bernie Perk.”  The Dick Gibson Show, 1971.
  • “The Guest.” Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers, 1966.
  • “The Transient.”  Boswell, 1964.
  • “Mr. Softee.” The Franchiser, 1976.
  • “The Conventional Wisdom.” The Living End, 1979.

Uncollected Stories

  • “The Dying.” Illini Writers 4 (September 1950): 10-18.
  • “Alone is Hurt Too.” Illini Writers 4 (Spring 1951): 11-19.
  • “Corporate Life.” Chicago, March 1985: 156-159.
  • “Golf-ball Size Hail.” Playboy (January 1994):134, 212, 250-262.
  • “Baseball Story.” New England Review 27 (2006): 48-52.
  • “Colin Kelly’s Kids.” New England Review 27 (2006): 53-56.

Unpublished Stories and Fragments of Novels

These stories are housed in the Elkin collections, Olin Library, Washington University, St. Louis.  Composition dates in brackets are conjectures;  those with no punctuation represent  dated typescripts or manuscripts.  A few are untitled, and I’ve provided a descriptive title in brackets.

  • “The Benders, Paula.”  Undated fragment of a possible story, 1 page handwritten [± 1954].
  • “Dangling.”  Undated ts, [± 1955]
  • “The Fall.” Undated ts. [± 1955]
  • “Chapter One” of a projected novel, holograph title “Tic Tac Doe: Game of Make A Novel,”   plus one page planning sheet; undated 6 page ts.  [± 1955].
  • “[Feldman Story]” and “treatment” or plan for the story.  Undated 4 page ts, [±  1954].
  • “The Glass Continent.”  Undated ts, partial draft of an early novel. [± 1956] Collection librarian’s date is 1952, but this appears not to be an undergraduate effort.  105 + xxiv pages.
  • “The Last of the Go-To-Hell-God-Damnits.” Undated ts, 39 pages. [± 1955].
  • “The Long Road back to Nineveh.” Undated short story, ts., 21 pages [± 1957].
  • “Next year in Jerusalem.” Undated short story ts. 13 pages. [± 1956].
  • “The Outlander.”  Undated novella, 43 pages [± 1958]
  • “[Richard Story].”  Undated story fragment, 11 page ts [± 1955].

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Collections of Essays

Pieces of Soap: Essays by Stanley Elkin. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Introduction by Helen Vendler. Contains thirty previously-published essays and introductions:

  • “Performance and Reality.”  Grand Street 2 (Summer 1983): 110-122.
  • “Plot.” SubStance 27 (1980): 70-74.
  • “Acts of Scholarship.”  Chicago 36 (September 1987): 132-137, 168-173.
  • “The Law of Average.”  Originally published as “How Average Are the Folks in ‘Middletown, U.S.A.’?”  The Dial, March 1982.
  • “What’s in a Name? (The 1987 Elizabeth and Stewart Credence Memorial Lecture).”  Denver Quarterly, 21 (Spring 1987): 109-26.  Fiction masquerading as an essay.  Excerpted as “Stanley Elkin on Stanleyness,” Harper’s 276 (May 1988): 36-37
  • “The First Amendment as an Art Form.”  Originally published as “Talk UP!  The First Amendment as An Art Form,” Grand Street 8 (Winter 1989): 94-107.
  • “The Muses Are Heard.”  Originally published as “The Muses Are Heard:  Dancing in the Heart of the Regional Arts.” Harper’s 277 (December 1987): 94-107; The Best American Essays 1989. Ed. Geoffrey Wolff. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1989.
  • “An American in California.”  California, February 1990: 52-59,112-118 and “An American in Northern California,”  March 1990: 56-63, 163.
  • “At the Academy Awards.”  Originally published as “In Darkest Hollywood: At the Academy Awards.”  Harper’s (December1989): 51-61; The Best American Essays 1990. Ed. Justin Kaplan. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990.
  • “The Rest of the Novel,” originally “The Future of the Novel: A View from the Eight-Seated Spaceship,” New York Times Book Review 23 February 1991: BR11. An address to a conference, “The Novel in the Next Century,” Bellagio, Italy, 1990.
  • “Pieces of Soap.”  Art and Antiques, November 1990.
  • “A Preface to the Sixties (But I am Getting Ahead of Myself),” preface to Stories from the Sixties.  Ed. Elkin.  New York: Doubleday, 1971.
  • “Introduction to The Best American Short Stories 1980.” The Best American Short Stories 1980.  Ed. Elkin and Shannon Ravenel. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1980.
  • “Foreword to Arthur Schnitzler, Plays and Stories.” Arthur Schnitzler, Plays and Stories.  Ed. Egon Schwartz.  New York: Continuum Publishing, 1982.
  • “A La Recherche du Whoopee Cushion,” Esquire 82 (July 1974): 126-129.
  • “Introduction to Early Elkin.  Early Elkin, Flint, MI: Bamberger Books, 1986.
  • “Introduction to The Six-Year-Old Man.” The Six-Year-Old Man. Flint, MI: Bamberger Books, 1987.
  • “Introduction to The Coffee Room. The Coffee Room. Louisville: Contre Coup, 1987.
  • “Foreword to Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.” Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers.  New York: Thunder’s Mouth, 1990.
  • “My Father’s Life.” Chicago 36 (June 1987): 159-60, 186-194.
  • “My Middle Age.”  Originally “The Withdrawal of Expectations,” TWA Ambassador 14 (June 1981): 32-34; as “Turning Middle Aged,” Washington University Magazine 54 (Spr 1984): 15-17.
  • “Why I Live Where I Live.” Esquire, November 1980: 108-109, 111.  Reprinted as Why I Live Where I Live.  University City, MO: Contre Coup Press, 1983.  Limited edition.
  • “A Kinsey Report.”  Originally “Alfred Kinsey: The Patron Saint of Sex.”  Esquire 100 (December 1986): 48, 50, 53.55.  Reprinted in Fifty Who Made the Difference. New York: Villard Books, 1984.
  • “My Shirt Tale.”  Harper’s, 278 (April 1989): 73-76.
  • “Summer: A True Confession.”  Chicago (June 1986).
  • “The Mild One.”  Esquire 105 (June 1986): 113.
  • “My Tuxed A Meditation.”  Chicago (May 1985). Excerpted as “In Praise of Tuxedos. Harper’s 271 (November 1985): 32-35.
  • “Three Meetings.”  TriQuarterly 17 (Winter 1970, special Nabokov edition): 261-265.  Reprinted, Tri-Quarterly 63 (Winter 1985): 155-159; Nabokov: Criticism, reminiscences, translations and tributes.  Ed. Alfred Appel and Charles Newman.  Evanston: Northwestern Univ Press, 1970; and The Best of TriQuarterly.  Ed. Jonathan Brent.  New York: Washington Square Press, 1982.
  • “Some Overrated Masterpieces.”  Art and Antiques Summer 1991:52-61. Reprinted as “About This Mona Lisa.” The Wilson Quarterly, 15 (Autumn 1991): 133; The Best American Essays 1992. Edited by Susan Sontag. New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1992; “Some Overrated Masterpieces.” Literature: Reading and Responding to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed. Joel Wingard. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.

Uncollected Essays:

  • “Miss Taylor and Family: An Outside View,” Esquire 62 (1964): 118-120, 43,44,46.
  • “A Prayer for Losers.”  Ed Gordon Lish.  California: Behavioral research Laboratories, 1966.
  • “The World on $5 a Day: The Saga of Arthur Frommer, First of the Small-Time Spenders.” Harper’s 245 (July 1972): 41-46.
  • “Inside Jean-Louis Trintignant,” Oui 2 (January 1973):  84-86,166.168-69,172-74.
  • “Representation and Performance,” Representation and Performance in Postmodern Literature,” ed. Maurice Couturier.  Montpelier: Delta, 1983: 181-191.  Proceedings of the 1982 Conference on Postmodern Fiction, Nice.
  • “The Contemporary Literature Speech in France.”  Revue Française d’études Américaines 27/28 (February 1986): 157-162.
  • “Joe McElroy: Introduction.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 10 (Spring 1990): 7-8.
  •  “American Fiction and its Reach.”  Harpers 284 (March 1992):  34-35.
  • “On Jerry Charyn.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction 12 (Spring 1992): 124.
  • “Out of One’s Tree:  My Bout with Temporary Insanity.”  Harper’s 286 (January 1993): 69-77.
  • “Words and Music.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 15 (Summer 1995): 27-37.

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Plays

  • “A Cup for God,”  unpublished verse drama, June 1954.  Elkin Collection, Olin Library, Washington University.
  • “The Six-Year Old Man: A Screenplay,” Esquire 70 (December 1968): 142-145, 226, 228, 232-233, 236-237, 240, 246-247, 251-253.  Full text, The Six-Year Old Man. Flint, MI: Bamberger Books, 1987.
  • The Coffee Room.  Louisville: Contre Coup, 1987.
  • “The Saturday Visit,” Colorado Review 20 (Fall 1993): 4-28.

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Filmscripts

  • The Art of War.  146-page filmscript prepared and revised under contract for Michael Ritchie and Columbia Pictures, 1973.  Never filmed, Olin Library.
  • Mudshow.139-page filmscript prepared and lightly revised under contract with Michael Ritchie and Paramount Pictures, 1977.  Never filmed, Olin Library.
  • The Demon Seed. Paramount Pictures, 1977.  Dir. Donald Cammell.  Producer Herb Jaffe.  At Jaffe’s request, Elkin revised the dialogue for the computer-character Proteus, but after a contract squabble, Elkin’s revisions were eliminated from the final film.  Elkin’s revisions, Olin Library.

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Reviews by Elkin

  • Review, “Porgy and Bess.” Coffee, undated clipping in Olin Library.
    Review, “The Immoral Mr. Teas.”  Coffee, undated clipping in Olin Library.
    Review, “The Magician.” Coffee, undated clipping in Olin Library.
    Review, The Wide World of John Steinbeck (Peter Luca).  Journal of English and Germanic Philology 58 (Jan 1959): 153-157.
  • Review, Quest for Failure: A Study of William Faulkner (Walter J. Slatoff). Journal of English and Germanic Philology 60 (April 1961): 349-52.
  • “A Survey of the Fields of Camp” (The Art of W. C. Fields by William K. Everson). Book World 24 December 1967: 4-5.
  • Review, The Fixer (Bernard Malamud). Massachusetts Review 8 (Spring 1967): 388-392.
  • “In the New Land of Oz.”  Review, Travel notes (From Here- To There) (Stanley Crawford). 
    New York Times Book Review 21 April 1968: 50-51.
  • “Trevor’s Sleight of Hand” (William Trevor, Angels at the Ritz and Other Stories).  Book World 2 August 1986: 1, 12.

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Special Editions Dedicated to Elkin and his Work

  • Delta 20 (February 1985).
  • “Stanley Elkin and William H. Gass: A Special Feature,” Iowa Review 7 (1975).
  • Review of Contemporary Fiction.  15 (Summer 1995).
  • “Stanley Elkin Revisited.” New England Review 27 (2006): 36-70.

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Interviews

Personal Interviews

Many people were generous with their time and memories of this extraordinary man.  I want to take this opportunity to thank each one of them, for many of the anecdotes in Shouting Down the Silence originate in their stories.

  • Anderson, Jean.  Writer.  E-mail and telephone, February 2006.
  • Avedon, Micki.  Childhood friend.  Letter and telephone, January 2006.
  • Bailey, Peter.  Scholar, Critic.  Letters and e-mails, 2004-2008
  • Ballowe, James,  Fellow student, life-long friend.  In person, October 2007 and e-mails..
  • Borchardt, Georges and Anne.  Literary agents.  In person, May 2007, and by telephone and e-mail.
  • Brandwein, Diane. Sister.   In person, May 2002 and by letter.
  • Buell, Uncle Ruthie.  Childhood friend.  Telephone, January 2006.
  • Charyn, Jerome.  Novelist, friend.  Telephone, July 2007.
  • Coover, Robert and Pilar.  Novelist, friends.  In person November 2006 and subsequent e-mails.
  • Cuoco, Lorin.  Colleague, NPR interviewer.  In person, June 2002,
  • Demarest, David.  Colleague, friend.  Telephone, February 2006.
  • Elkin, Bernard.  Son.  In person, June 2002.
  • Elkin, Joan.  Spouse, care-giver and muse.  In person June and September 2002;  August 2004;  August 2005; and many letters and telephone conversations.
  • Elkin, Molly.  Daughter. In person, December 2002 and several e-mails.
  • Elkin, Philip.  Son. In person, June 2002.
  • Fields, Wayne.  Colleague.  In person, June 2002.
  • Galati, Frank,  Screenwriter and director.  In person, June 2002.
  • Gass, William H.  Writer, colleague, close friend.  In person, September 2002 and August 2006 and subsequent e-mails.
  • Gold, Charles.  Colleague, long-term friend.  Telephone, Sep 2007 and June 2008, letters and e-mails.
  • Gottfried, Leon.  Colleague.  Telephone, April 2008.
  • Grammer, John.  Sewanee colleague.  In person October 2007 and subsequent e-mails.
  • Guggenheim, Janis.  Widow of childhood friend.  In person, May 2002.
  • Jacobson, Marshall.  Brother-in-law.  In person June 2002.
  • Kipniss, Robert. Artist, Army buddy.  In person, November 2006.
  • Lebowitz, Al and Naomi.  Lawyer, colleague, and close friends.   In person June 2002 and subsequent  e-mails.
  • McGraw, Erin.  Writer, former workshop student.  In person, March 2006 and October 2007.
  • Milofsky, David.  Writer, editor.  Telephone, November 2007.
  • Mohrlein, John.  Actor, theater producer.  Telephone, December 2007.
  • Monaghan, Patricia. Writer, academic.  Telephone, January 2006.
  • Novak, Robert.  Journalist, college friend.  In person, March 2006.
  • Pepe, George.  Colleague, neighbor, close friend.  In person, June 2002 and August 2005.
  • Pope, Nancy.  Student, Colleague.  In person August 2005 and e-mail.
  • Prunty, Wyatt.  Poet, Conference Director. Telephone September 2007; in person October 2007.
  • Robins, Lee.  Colleague, “Third Tuesday,” widow of Eli R.  Telephone, September 2007.
  • Shea, Dan.  Colleague, close friend.  In person June 2002 and August 2005, subsequent e-mails.
  • Siegel, Ben  (“Bud”). Childhood friend.  Telephone, March 2006, and subsequent e-mails.
  • Snider, Yash. High school acquaintance.  Telephone, January 2003.
  • Spacks, Barry.  Poet, cousin.  Telephone and e-mail, November 2002.
  • Thurston, Jarvis (1914-5 Feb 2008).  Poet, editor, department chair.  By telephone, September 2002.
  • Teitelbaum, Marilyn and Steve.  Colleagues, friends, “Third Tuesday.” In person June 2002 and subsequent e-mails.
  • Vendler, Helen.  Critic, friend.  In person, July 2006.
  • Wagner, Raymond.  Film producer.  Telephone, March 2006.
  • Waters. Pat.  Writer, academic.  Telephone, July 2007.
  • Wilkins, Damien.  Writer, former student.  Telephone March 2006 and subsequent e-mails.
  • Wolitzer, Hilma.  Writer.  Telephone, July 2007.

Published Interviews

  • “An Interview with Stanley Elkin.” AWP Newsletter. February/March 1988: 10-11.
  • Bailey, Peter J.  “’A Hat Where There Never Was a Hat’: Stanley Elkin’s Fifteenth Interview.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction 15 (1995): 15-26. 
  • Bargen, Doris G.  “Appendix: An Interview with Stanley Elkin.”  The Fiction of Stanley Elkin.  Frankfurt: Peter D. Lang, 1980.
  • Bernt, Phylis and Joseph. “Stanley Elkin on Fiction: An Interview.”  Prairie Schooner 50 (1975): 22. 
  • Chenetier, Marc.  “An Interview with Stanley Elkin.”  Delta 10 (1985):14-35.
  • Cuoco, Lorin, “KMWU  Presents Stanley Elkin.”  National Public Radio, St Louis, MO, two broadcasts, 1985 and 1986.
  • Duncan, Jeffrey. “A Conversation with Stanley Elkin and William H. Gass.” Iowa Review 7 (1976): 62-63.
  • Dougherty, David C. “A Conversation with Stanley Elkin,” Literary Review 34 (1991):  182-195.  Reprinted in Sylvia Skaggs McTague, ed, The Muse Upon My Shoulder: Interviews with Contemporary Authors (Teaneck: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 2005).
  • Earlywine, Robert.  “An Interview with Stanley Elkin.”  Webster Review 8 (1983)” 5-16.
  • Gass, William H.  “Adventures in the Writing Life.” Washington Post Book World 12 (10 October 1982): 10-12.
  • LeClair, Tom.  “Stanley Elkin: The Art of Fiction LXI.” Paris Review 17 (Summer 1976):  70.  Reprinted in LeClair and Larry McCaffrey, Anything Can Happen” Interviews with Contemporary Novelists.  Urbana. IL: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1983.
  • Plummer, William.  An Interview with Stanley Elkin.”  Bookletter 2 (1975): 13
  • Renwick, Joyce.  “Stanley Elkin an Interview.” Mid-American Review 5 (1985): 61-67.
  • Sale, Richard.  “An Interview with Stanley Elkin in St. Louis.”  Studies in the Novel 16 (1984): 314-25.
  • Sanders, Scott.  “An Interview with Stanley Elkin,” Contemporary Literature 16 (1975):  131-145.
  • Swaim, Don.  Radio Interview on The Magic Kingdom.  16 Apr 1985.
  • _______.  Radio Interview on The Magic Kingdom and The Rabbi of Lud, 12 Nov 1987.
  • ________.  Radio Interview on  The MacGuffin. 20 Nov 1991.
  • Winner, D. Washington University Student Life (17 February 1971).

Newspaper and Magazine Stories Summarizing Interviews

  • Berkley, Miriam.  “PW Interviews Stanley Elkin.”  Publisher’s Weekly 29 March 1985: 74-75. Also published in Chicago Sun-Times Book Week 31 March 1985: 26.
  • Burnside, Gordon.  “The Funniest Writer.”  St. Louis  (May 1983); 128.
  • Cricklaw, Don.  “The Low-Down Comedy of Stanley Elkin.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 28 November 1972.
  • Emerson, Ken.  “The Indecorous, Rabelaisian, Convoluted Righteousness of Stanley Elkin.” New York Times Magazine 3 March 1991.
  • Farrell, Michael J. “Stanley Elkin: Writing to the rhythm of the heart’s oom-pa-pa,” The Catholic Reporter, 9 May 1986.
  • Freitag, Michael. “The Trouble with Facts.”  8 November 1987.  Clipping in Olin Library.
  • Futterman, Ellen , “Full-Tile Elkin,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 14 April 1991.
  • Hahn, Roger, “The Sweet and Sour heart of Stanley Elkin.”  The Weekly 8-14 March 1985.
  • Hanscom, Leslie.  “How to Get Your Name Above the Title.”  Newsday 1 March 1981.
  • Keith, Bob,  Untitled.  Daily Iowan 3 April 1974.
  • Marx, Bill, “Guru of Gab.”  Boston Globe 10 Apr 1992.
  • Rice, Patricia.  “After Death: ‘The Living End.’”  St. Louis Post-Dispatch 18 July 1977.
  • Sayad, Elizabeth Gentry.  “Living with the Arts.”  West End World (November 1973).
  • Shamberg, Michael. “Oh, Boy, Is Stanley Elkin Smart!”  Chicago Daily News 18 November 1967.
  • Strasbaugh, John . “Elkin Magic.” Baltimore City Paper 12 May 1989, 26-28.
  • Winner, D.  Washington University Student Life (1971)
  • Woo, William F., “Inward Look at an Emerging Writer.”  St Louis Post-Dispatch (undated [1965] copy in Elkin archive)
  • WWAH radio (St. Louis) 25 May 1976.

Back To Top

Biography and Criticism

Biography and Tribute Pieces

  • Bates, Stanley.  New England Review 27 (2006): 64.
  • Baxter, Charles.  New England Review 27 (2006): 68-70.
  • Charyn, Jerome.  “On Stanley Elkin.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 15 (Summer 1995): 42-43.
  • Cohen, Robert.  New England Review 27 (2006): 65-66.
  • Coover, Robert.  New England Review 27: 2006: 60-62.
  • Gass, William H, “Stanley Elkin: An Anecdote,” Washington University Magazine (Spring 1984):  Repr, Review of Contemporary Fiction 15 (Summer 1995): 38-41.
  • _____.  New England Review 27 (2006): 65.
  • Irving, John.  New England Review 27 (2006): 59.
  • Kramer, Kathryn.  New England Review 27 (2006): 63.
  • Krieger, Leonard. “Remembering Elkin,” Forward 3 Nov 1995.
  • Pack, Robert.  New England Review 27 (2006): 62.
  • Wilkins, Damien.  New England Review 27 (2006): 66-68.
  • Vendler, Helen.  New England Review 27 (2006).57-59.
  • Wolff, Geoffrey.  “Remembering Stanley Elkin: Master of Excess.”  New York Times Book Review 100 (17 Sep 1995: 43.

Books about Elkin

  • Bailey, Peter J.  Reading Stanley Elkin. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1985.
  • Bargen, Doris.  The Fiction of Stanley Elkin.  Frankfurt: Lang, 1980.
  • Dougherty, David C.  Stanley Elkin.  Boston: G. K. Hall, 1991.

Books Containing Chapters or Substantial Treatments of Elkin

  • Bain, David Howard. Whose Woods These Are: A History of the Bread Loaf Writer’s Conference 1926-1992.  Hopewell, New York: Ecco Press, 1993.
  • Bargen, Doris.  “Stanley Elkin.” Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 2: American Novelists Since World War II.  Ed. Jeffrey Helterman and Richard Layman.   Detroit: Gale/Bruccoli, 1974: 131-136.
  • _______.   “Stanley Elkin.”  Dictionary of Literary Biography, vol. 28: Twentieth-Century Jewish-American Writers.  Ed. David Walden.  Detroit: Gale/Bruccoli, 1984: 47-50.
  • _______.  “Stanley Elkin.”  Dictionary of Literary Biography Yearbook: 1980.  Ed. Karen Wood, Jean D. Ross, Richard Ziegfield.  Detroit: Gale/Bruccoli, 1981: 36-40.
  • Charyn, Jerome.  “On Stanley Elkin.” Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995). 42-43.
  • Connaughton, Michael.  “Stanley Elkin.”  Critical Survey of Long Fiction.  Ed. Frank Magill.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ:  Salem Press, 1983: Volume 8, 884-893.
  • Dittmar, Kurt.  “Stanley Elkin: ‘I Look Out for Ed Wolfe.’”  Die Amerikanische Short Story der gegenwart: Interpretation.  Ed. Peter Freese.  Berlin: Schmidt, 1975.
  • Dougherty, David C. “Elkin, Stanley.”  Literary Encyclopedia, ed. Robert Clarke.  www.litencyc.com, 2003.
  • _______.  “Stanley Elkin.” Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives Vol 4 (1994-1996).  New York: Charles Scriber’s Sons, 2001: 148-49.
  • _________.“Stanley Elkin’s Novels,” Dictionary of Literary Biography 278: American Novelists Since World War II.  Ed. James Giles and Wanda Giles.  Detroit: Bruccoli Clark Layman, 2003: 112-125.
  • _______.“Stanley Elkin’s Short Stories.”  Dictionary of Literary Biography: American Short Story Writers Since World War II.  Eds. Patrick Meanor and Gwen Davis.  Detroit.  Bruccoli-Clark, 1998:  135-45.
  • _________. "Stanley Elkin."  Encyclopedia of Popular Fiction, Vol 12. Ed. Kirk F. Beetz.  Osprey, FL: Beacham Publishing, 1996.
  • ______.  “Elkin, Stanley Lawrence.” The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives.  Volume 4, 1994-1996.  Eds. Karen Markoe and Arnold Markoe.  New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001: 148-150.
  • Guttman, Allen.  “The Black Humorists.” The Jewish Writer in America: Assimilation and the Crisis of Identity.  New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1971.
  • Lebowitz, “The Twentieth-Century Novel: New Wine in Old Bottles,”  Humanism and the Absurd in the Modern Novel.  Evanston: Northwestern Univ. Press, 1979: 125-128.
  • Morace, Robert.  “George Mills.”  Magill’s Literary Annual 1983. Ed. Frank Magill.  Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem Press, 1983:  Vol. 1, 273-277. 
  • Olderman, Raymond.  “The Fisher King Turns Warden.” Beyond the Waste Land: A Study of American Fiction in the Nineteen-Sixties.  New haven: Yale University Press, 1966: 52-71.
  • Sadkin, David.  “Stanley Elkin.”  Critical Survey of Short Fiction.  Ed. Frank Magill.  Englewood Cliffs: Salem press, 1981:  Vol. 4, 1338-1343.
  • Watts, Emily Snipes.  “The Businessman as Hero.”  The Businessman in American Literature.  Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1982: 137-143.
  • Wilkins, Damien.  “Opening the Bag.”  Mutes and Earthquakes. Wellington, NZ: Victoria University Press, 1997: 66-71.
  • Wilde, Alan.  “A Map of Supersensitivness: Irony in the Postmodern Age.”  Horzons of Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism, and the Ironic Imagination.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1981: 127-165.

Critical Essays about Elkin

  • Abrioux, Yves.  “Animal et être parlant: ‘The Making of Ashenden.’” Delta 20 (Feb 1985): 149-80.
  • Bailey, Peter J.  ““I Think I Know Most of My Readers by Name”: Dick Gibson, Stanley Elkin, and the Issue of Audience.” A Casbook on Stanley Elkin’s The Dick Gibson Show.  Ed. David C. Dougherty.  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2003. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/introduction_dickgibson
  • ______.  M.S. as Metaphor.  Delta 20 (Feb 1985): 57-71.
  • _______.  “Stanley Elkin’s Tales of Last Resorts.”  Mid-American Review 5 (1985): 73-80.
  • Bargen, Doris.  “The Orphan Adopted: Stanley Elkin’s The Franchiser.”    Studies in American Jewish Literature 2 (1982): 132-143.
  • Chénetier, Marc.  “Organisme, organicisme et ecriture dans Searches and Seizures.”  Delta 20 (Feb 1985): 181-206.
  • Christensen, Peter J. “A New View of Dick Gibson’s Apprenticeship.” A Casbook on Stanley Elkin’s The Dick Gibson Show.  Ed. David C. Dougherty.  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2003. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/introduction_dickgibson
  • _____.  “The Escape from the Curse of History in Stanley Elkin’s George Mills.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995): 79-91.
  • Colbert, Robert Edward.  “The American Salesman as Pitchman and Poet in the Fiction of Stanley Elkin.”  Critique 21 (1978): 52-58.
  • Couturier, Maurice.  “Elkin’s George Mills: or, How to Make an Ectoplasm Schmooze.” Delta 20 (February 1985): 73-91.
  • Danon-Boileau, Laurent.  “Declinasion du non.”  Delta 20 (February 1985): 111-126. 
  • Ditmar, Kurt.  “Stanley Elkin, ‘L Look Out for Ed Wolfe.’”  Die amerikanmsche Short Story der Gegenwart.  Ed. Peter Freese.  Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1976: 252-261.  In German.
  • Ditsky, John.  “Death as Grotesque as Life: The Fiction of Stanley Elkin.”  Hollins Critic 19 (June 1982): 1-11.
  • Dougherty, David. “‘Because Everything Has a Perfectly Reasonable Explanation.’ Our Ticket to Elkin’s Magic Kingdom.”  A Casebook on Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom.  Ed.  Dougherty,  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2005. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/magic_kingdom
  • _______. “Listening in on America: Static and The Dick Gibson Show.” A Casbook on Stanley Elkin’s The Dick Gibson Show.  Ed. Dougherty.  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2003. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/introduction_dickgibson
  • _______.  “Nemeses and Macguffins: Paranoia as Focal Metaphor in Stanley Elkin, Joseph Heller, and Thomas Pynchon.” Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995): 70-78.
  • _________.  “Prospects of Recovery:  Two Unpublished Sketches by Stanley Elkin.”  New England Review 27 (2006): 41-46.
  • Edinger, Harry G. “Bears in Three Contemporary Fictions.”  Humanities Association Review 28 (1976): 141-150.
  • Gass, William H.  “Stanley Elkin’s The Franchiser.”  New Republic 28 (June 1980): 29-32.  Reprinted as the foreword to the Godine and Dalkey Archive editions of The Franchiser
  • _______.  “Stanley Elkin: An Anecdote.”  Washington University Magazine  Spring 1984: 12-14, reprinted  Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995):38-41.
  • Hardaway, “The Power of the Guest: Stanley Elkin’s Fiction.”  Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature 32 (1977): 234-245.
  • Klinkowitz, Jerome.  “Elkin Before Elkin.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995): 44-47.
  •  LeClair, Thomas.  “The Obsessional Fiction of Stanley Elkin.”  Contemporary Literature 16 (1974): 146-162.
  • Lee, L. L.  “The Anonymous American as Historian: Stanley Elkin’s Boswell.”  Critique 26 (1985): 185-191.
  • McCaffrey, Larry.  “Stanley Elkin’s Recovery of the Ordinary.” Critique 21 (1978): 39-51.
  • Molesworth, Charles.  “Stanley Elkin and ‘Everything’: The Problem of Surfaces and Fullness in  the Novels.”  Delta 20 (February 1985): 93-100.  Reprinted, Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995):.48-60.
  • Morace, Robert. “Stanley Elkin’s Magic Carnival.” A Casebook on Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom.  Ed. David C. Dougherty,  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2005. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/magic_kingdom
  • Myers, D. G. “The Two Voices of The Dick Gibson Show: Stanley Elkin’s Jewish Question.” A Casbook on Stanley Elkin’s The Dick Gibson Show.  Ed. David C. Dougherty.  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2003. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/introduction_dickgibson
  • O’Donnell, Patrick.  “Of Red Herrings and Loose Ends:  Reading ‘Politics’ in Elkin’s the MacGuffin.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995): 92-100.
  • Olderman, Raymond.  “The Six Crises of Dick Gibson.”  Iowa Review 7 (1975): 127-140.
  • Raff. Melvin.  “Wyndham Lewis and Stanley Elkin: Salvation, Satire and Hell.”  Studies in Contemporary  Satire 8 (Spring 1981): 1-8.
  • Sammarcelli, Françoise.  “Comparison et interiorité dans Searches and Seizures de Stanley Elkin.”  Delta 20 (Feb 1985): 127-147.
  • Saltzman, Arthur M.  “Ego and Appetite in Stanley Elkin’s Fiction.”  Literary Review 32 (1988): 111-118.  A later version appeared as “Stanley Elkin: An Introduction” in Review of Contemporary Fiction  XV (Summer 1995): 7-14.
  • ________. “Living on the Air: The Dick Gibson Show’s Greatest Hits.”  A Casbook on Stanley Elkin’s The Dick Gibson Show.  Ed. David C. Dougherty.  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2003. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/introduction_dickgibson
  • Shapiro, Michael J.  “Stanley Elkin’s ‘Magic Kingdom’ and the Politics of Death.”  International Political Science Review 12 (Apr 1991): 149-163.
  • Tristman, Richard.  “Tragic Soliloquy, Stand-up Spiel.”  New England Review 27 (2006): 36-40.
  • Wells, Kellie. “The ‘skirls and screaks’ of ‘the deserving dead,’ Stanley Elkin’s Death-Defying Maximalism.” A Casebook on Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom.  Ed. David C. Dougherty,  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2005. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/magic_kingdom
  • Wilde, Alan.  “Final Things: More Letters to mzimmer%humanitas@hub.ucsb.edu.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction XV (Summer 1995): 61-69.  An “earlier installment” appeared as “The Once and Future Novel: Letters to iwp1muri@ucsbuxta.bitnet.” ANQ 5 (Pct 1992): 252-257.
  • Wilman, Skip. “Misrecognition and the Gaze in Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom.” A Casebook on Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom.  Ed. David C. Dougherty,  Normal, IL: Dalkey Archive on-line press, 2005. www.dalkeyarchive.com/casebooks/magic_kingdom

Reviews of Elkin’s Work

Boswell: A Modern Comedy (1964).

  • Ciardi, John.  “Realism and Fantasy.” Saturday Review 15 Aug ust1964: 6.
  • Crane, Milton.  Books Today
  • Kirkus Reviews 15 May 1964: 500.
  • Klein, Marcus. “Fiction North and South.” The Kenyon Review, 26 (Autumn 1964): 759-63
  • Levin, Martin.  The New York Times Book Review 12 July 1964: 28.
  • Levitas, Gloria.  “Buchenwald, Buchenwald …” Washington Post Book World 29 October 1967: 16.
  • Maurer, Robert. “Shaggy Doggerel” New York Herald Tribune.  21 June 1964: 16.
  • McGloin, Joseph T.  Extension, September 1964: 11.
  • Poore, Charles. “A Novel About a Wild Young Man in a Hurry; BOSWELL: A Modern Comedy. By Stanley Elkin.” New York Times  7 July 1964: 33.
  • “Sponging in Style.” Times Literary Supplement 22 October 1964: 953.
  • Virginia Quarterly Review 40 (Autumn 1964): cxiv.

Criers and Kibitzers, Kibitzers and Criers (1966).

  • Bates, Helen. “One Out of Nine,” 6 February 1966, clipping in Elkin Archives.
  • Bellman, Samuel I. “Nowhere to Go and No One to Know.” Saturday Review 49 (15 January 1966): 41.
  • _______.“Elkin’s Declaration of Woe.” Los Angeles Times Calendar 16 January 1966.
  • Berkow, Ira. “The Grocer’s Trouble:  He Was Human.” Minneapolis Tribune 27 March 1966.
  • Borenstein, A. Farrell.  “Contagious Magic.”  North American Review 3 (March 1966): 35.
  • Brady, Charles A. “3 Works Illustrate the Constant Crisis of Classic Fiction Forms.”  Buffalo Evening News 15 January 1966.
  • Brinckner, Richard P. “Born Losers.” NY Times Book Review 23 January 1966.
  • Choice 3 (October 1966): 636.
  • Crane, Kendall. “Abstract Talent.” Pittsburgh Press 27 February 1966.
  • Deutsch, Linda. “Short Stories Show Little but Varied Style.” Asbury Park Evening Press 17 January1966.
  • Eberle, Ann. Untitled.  Chattanooga Daily Times 13 February 1966.
  • Galloway, David.  “Visions of Life in Recent Fiction.”  Southern Review 4 (1968): 859-60.
  • Goodman, Ellen. “A Spicy People Collection.” Detroit Free Press 23 January 1966.
  • Goodspeed, John .“Another Superior Book of Stories.” Baltimore Sun 6 February 1966.
  • Grumbach, Doris. “Fine Print.” New Republic 170 (23 March 1974): 32.  [Reviewing the Plume reprint].
  • Grutzmacher, Harold M. “Three Works of Craftsmanship.” Chicago Tribune 30 January 1966.
  • Guttmann, Allen. “Stanley Elkin’s Orphans.” Massachusetts Review 7 (1966): 597-600, 315-17.
  • Kitching, Jesse. “Fiction,” Publisher’s Weekly 15 November 1965.
  • Knickerbocker, Conrad. “Short Stories of a Pair of Young Masters” Life  50 (14 January 1966): 8. 10.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Sobering up,” New York Times 3 January 1966.
  • Lewis, Peggy. “Personal Agonies Become Universal.”  Trenton Daily Trentonian 15 January 1966.
  • Murray, James G. “Experimenting to Answer a Challenge.”  Long Island Catholic 20 January 1966.
  • Murdick, Marvin.  “Evelyn, Get the Horseradish.”  Hudson Review 19 (Summer 1966): 315-317.
  • L. P.  “Their Signal Grace is Humility.”  Christian Science Monitor 58 (12 May 1966): 11.
  • Quigley, Martha. “Stanley Elkin’s Delight:  Irresponsible Characters.”  St. Louis Globe-Democrat 22 January 1966.
  • K.R. “Today’s Book Review.” New Haven Register 9 February 1966.
  • Rosofsky, H. L. Library Journal 91 (15 January 1966): 276.
  • M.S. “In His Short Stories, Elkin Hits Funny Bone – and Heart.”  National Observer 10 January 1966.
  • Scully, Malcolm. “Comic Treatment of the Commonplace.” Charlotte Observer 6 February 1966
  • Sheppard, R. Z. “Wailing.” Book Week 3 (6 February 1966): 14.
  • Smith, Miles A. “Tragedy Reflected in a Funhouse Mirror.” Pomona (CA) Progress-Bulletin 22 February 1966.
  • Sullivan, Mary.  “Flavours.” Listener 79 (28 March 1968): 415.
  • Taylor, David. “A World of Cripples.” Louisville Courier-Journal 13 February 1966.
  • Thompson, John. “From Out of Nowhere,” New York Review of Books 6 (3 March 1966): 12
  • Uns. Booklist 62 (15 February1966): 566.
  • Uns. Choice 3 (October 1966): 636.
  • Uns.  “In Short Stories, Elkin Hits the Funny Bone  -- and Heart.” National Observer 5 (19 January 1966): 27.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews, 33 (1 November 1965): 1131.
  • Uns.  Publisher’s Weekly 193 (11 March 1968): 51.
  • Woo, William. “Losers Have Their Innings In Elkin Stories.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, clipping in Elkin Archive.

A Bad Man (1967).

  • Bellman, Samuel I.  “The Good & the Bad.”  Congress bi-Weekly 11 March 1968.
  • Bergonzi, Bernard. “Catch-31.” The New York Review 18 January 1968.
  • Bitker, Marjorie M. “The Sins of Feldman.” Milwaukee Journal 22 October 1967.
  • Cavinder, Fred D. “’Bad Man’ Has Bad Time with the Law.”  Indianapolis Star 12 November 1967.
  • Cabau, Jacques.  “Un Goulag américain.” L’Express, 1977.  Review of Un Sale Type, translator Jean-Pierre Carasso (Paris, 1977).
  • Firestone, Bea. “Too Many Words Spoil the Book.” Kansas City Jewish Chronicle, nd 1967.
  • Fowles, Jib.  “Lobby Comedy,” The New Leader 4 December 1967.
  • Greenfield, Josh.  “The World of Leo Feldman.” New York Times Book Review 15 October 1967.
  • Haas, Joseph. “The Unsentimental tale of a born loser.”  Chicago Daily News 18 November 1967.
  • Hamilton, Philip.  “SE’s A Bad Man.”  MLA Quarterly 29 (September 1968): 237-238.
  • Jaffe, Dan. “The Bad Man’s Self Comes First.”  Kansas City Star 5 November 1967.
  • Keneggy, Richard.  “Fine Phrases.” Books and Bookmen May 1968.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Killing for Fun and Games.” Books of the Times, New York Times 7 October 1967.
  • Le Voit, Andre.  “Libraire du Mois.”  Espirit 6 (June 1978): 141.
  • Malin, Irving.  Commonweal 8 December 1967.
  • Merzer, Meridee. “Elkin’s ‘A Bad Man’ is Brilliant.” Student Life [Washington University] 17 November 1967.
  • O’Connell, Shaun. “Bad Man in the Real World.”  The Nation 27 November 1967.
  • Potter, Nancy A. “Comedy with a Moral.” St. Louis Post Dispatch 15 October 1967.
  • Powers,  Ed.  “Black Humor Fails to Go Far Enough.” Cleveland Press 6 October 1967.
  • Quigley, Martin. “Fighting the World ‘Day at a Time.”  St. Louis Globe Democrat, n.d.
  • Ribalow, Harold U. “On Doing Favors,” Jewish Exponent, n.d.
  • Schott, Webster, “A Comic Outburst on the Nature of Evil.” Life Magazine 27 October 1967.
  • Sheppard, R. Z. “Leo the Louse Tells Where the Money Is.“ Washington Post Book World 22 October1967.
  • Shrapnel, Norman.  “Three Letter Words.” Manchester Guardian Weekly 11 April 1968.
  • Standen, Gary. “St. Louisan’s New Book a Critical Success.”  St. Louis Post-Dispatch 24 November 1967.
  • Stern, Daniel. “Cosmic Put-On.” Saturday Review 18 November 1967.
  • Sullivan, Mary.  “Flavors.” The Listener 28 March 1968.
  • Sullivan, Walter.  “’Where Have All the Flowers Gone?’ Part II: The Novel in the Gnostic Twilight.”  Sewanee Review 78 (Autumn 1970): 654-664.
  • Thompson, Eugenia. “Funniest Sad Man Cherishes His Sins.” Cleveland Plain Dealer 12 November 1967.
  • Tuttleton, J. W. “System of Stanly Elkin’s Hell.” Daily Cardinal (Univ Wisconsin) 27 October 1967.
  • Williams, David.  “New Novels.” Punch 27 (March 1968): 472.
  • ________.  “Annual Report and Distribution of Prizes.” Punch 1 January 1969.
  • Yardley, Jonathan. “About Books.”  Greensboro Daily News 17 November 1967.
  • “You Believe Three?”  Nashville Tennessean 19 November 1967.
  • Uns,, The American News, October Books, October 1967.
  • Uns. Bookist 15 December 1967.
  • Uns.  “Briefly noted.”  New Yorker 24 February 1968.
  • Uns.  Choice April 1968.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 1 August 1967.
  • Uns.  Time 27 October 1967.
  • Uns.  Virginia Quarterly Review 44 (Spring 1968): lvi.
  • Weigel, John M. “’Black Humor’ Novel Shows Author’s Talent.”  Cincinnati Enquirer 11 November 1967.
  • Zaiman, Mildred. “Only Skin Deep.”  Courant Magazine 31December 1967.

The Dick Gibson Show (1971).

  • Avant, J[ohn]. A. Library Journal 96 (1 June 1971): 2008.
  • Barrett, Mary Ellin.  “Cosmo Reads the New Books.”  Cosmopolitan 22 March 1971: 10.
  • Bell,  Pearl K. “Slogging through a Sahara. ”New Leader 54 (5 April 1971): 17-18.
  • Butler, Robert W.  “Missouri Writer Capitalizes on Love of Radio Shows.”  Kansas City Times 4 March 1970.
  • “Fantastic Displacements.”  The Times Literary Supplement 27 August 1971:  1018.
  • Garmel, Marlon S.  “Sounds of Silence.”  National Observer 22 March 1971: 21.
  • Lehman-Haupt, Christopher.  “Listen to this One, Folks!”  The New York Times, 27 February 1971.   D37.
  • McElroy, Joseph.  “Our Radio Classic?”  New York Times Book Review,  27 February 1971, 6-7.
  • Midwood, Barton.  Esquire April 1971:  30, 32.
  • Pritchard, William H. “Stranger than Truth.” Hudson Review 24 (Summer 1971): 359.
  • Sheppard,  R. Z. “Don’t Touch that Dial!”   Time 97 (1 March 1971): 82.
  • Theroux, Paul, “Neither Dirt Nor Art.”  Washington Post Book World 7 March 1971: 2.
  • Uns. American Libraries  2 (September 1971):  897.
  • Uns.  Kirkus Reviews 15 December 1970.
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly 198 (14 December 1970): 33.
  • Wolff, Geoffrey.  “A Roundup of Recent Fiction.”  Newsweek 77 (19 April 1971):  118b, 120.

Reviews of Theatrical Adaptations of The Dick Gibson Show

  • Elliott, David.  “The Dick Gibson Show:  Something Completely Different.”  Chicago Sun-Times 29 October 1979 (“Novel Ventures” production).
  • Quinlan, J. E.  “An Unfunny Neil Simon, a Real Gem from Frank Galati.”  Near North News 3 November 1979 (“Novel Ventures” production).

Searches and Seizures (1973).

  • Allen, Bruce.  “Fiction Chronicle.” Hudson Review 27 (Spring 1974): 119-132.
  • Avant, John A.  Library Journal 15 November 1973: 3391-3392.
  • C.A.B. “World Problems Solved, Elkin’s Verbal Comedy” Buffalo Evening News 15 December 1973.
  • Barth, Joseph.  The Reprint Bulletin Book Reviews 24 (1979): 20.
  • Baxter, Tom. “Elkin: master of Comic Energy.”  News and Courier [Charleston SC] 18 November 1973.
  • Bawden, Nina. “Recent Fiction.” London Daily-telegraph 11 July 1974.
  • Bellman, Samuel I. Studies in Short Fiction 11 (Fall 1974): 438-439.
  • Bloom, Ian. “Some Black Humor” Jewish Chronicle 29 November 1974.
  • Clapp, Samantha.  “The Lists of Lust.”  Times Literary Supplement 13 December 1974: 1405.
  • Cogan, Marc. “The banal explodes into the exotic and magnificently funny.” Book Week 14 October 1973.
  • Corwin, Philip. “One for three.” National Observer 17 November 1973: 25.
  • Davis, L. J. “Searches and Seizures.” Washington Post Book World 28 October 1973: 10-11.
  • DeWan, George. “He lets the Quips Fall.” Garden City [NJ] Newsday 28 October 1973.
  • Edwards, Thomas R. “Funny & moving assaults on the reader’s habits, sense and manners.”  New York Times Book Review  21 October 1973: 3.
  • Edelman, Lily. “The Seeing Eye: Three Writers and Their Tales of Home.”  The National Jewish Monthly June 1974: 46-49.
  • Grumbach, Doris.  “Fine Print: New Nectar.” Saturday Review 3 February 1979: 42-43.
  • Harrington, John. “Elkin’s S&S: Seductively Styled Novellas.” Columbia Daily Spectator 21 November 1973.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher.  “A Gag & Two Ominous Words.” New York Times 9 October 1973: 45.
  • Leonard, John.  “1973: An Apology and 38 Consolations.” New York Times Review of Books 2 December 1973: 2.
  • McKinley, James. “A Horror That’s Inherent in Comedy.” Kansas City Star 6 January 1974.
  • Monk, Wendy. “New Fiction” Birmingham Post 30 November 1974.
  • Olderman, Raymond M.  “The Politics of Vitality: On SE.”  fiction international 2/3 (1974): 140-144.
  • Olson, Clarence E. “The Passionate Gargoyles” St. Louis Post-Dispatch. n.d.
  • Pace, Eric.  New York Times 17 March 1973.
  • Plummer, William.  “Searches and Seizures.” New Republic 23 June 1979: 33-35.
  • Raban, Jonathan.  “Taking Possession – New Fiction.” Encounter February 1975: 80-84.
  • Rovit, Earl.  “Some Shapes in Recent American Fiction.” Contemporary Literature 15 (Autumn 1974):  547-548.
  • Seymour-Smith, Martin. “She-bear at large” Financial Times 7 November 1974.
  • Sigal, Clancy. Satire as Prop.” New Republic 24 November 1973: 31.
  • Somers, Dermot. “From America to Anglo-Ireland” Irish Times [n.d.]
  • Suplee, Curt. Minnesota Daily 19 November 1973.
  • Uns.  Book World 28 October 1973: 10.
  • Uns.  Choice March 1974: 87.
  • Uns.  Kirkus Reviews 41 (15 August 1973): 904.
  • Uns.  “Notable.” Time 102 (20 October 1973): 122, 124.
  • Uns.  Playboy 20 (November 1973): 44, 46.
  • Uns.  Publishers Weekly  204 (13 August 1973): 45, 48.
  • Wood, Michael. “Flirting with Disintegration.”  New York Review of Books 21 March 1974: 19-22.

Reviews of Alex and the Gypsy, Film Adaptation of “The Bailbondsman”

  • Ebert, Roger.  Chicago Sun-Times November 1976.
  • Kael, Pauline.  The New Yorker 18 October 1986: 77-78.
  • Thingvall, Joel. “Movies,” Mpls. January 1977: 52.

Reviews of The Making of Ashenden, adapted for the stage by Larry Sloane

  • Collins, Scott, “Author Stanley Elkin’s work has special appeal here,” Southtown Economist 11 October 1990.
  • Home at Last,” Chicago Tribune 30 September 1990.
  • Weiss,Hedy. “Remains’ new digs are just right, but play misses mark” Chicago Tribune 8 October 1990

The Franchiser (1976).

  • Allen, Bruce.  “Fiction:  the outrageous talents of Stanley Elkin.”  Chicago Tribune Books World 13 June 1976.
  • Biggar, John. “Elkin’s Journey Into America’s Prefab Heart,” Columbia Daily Spectator 28 October 1976.
  • Barkham, John.  “Sharp-Toothed Satire.”  Toledo Blade 20 June 1976.
  • Bready, James.  “In a World of Malls and Motels.”  Milwaukee Journal 20 June 1976.
  • Cain, Michael Scott.  “Rich in character, thin in story.” Baltimore Sun 13 June 1976.
  • Chabot, Barry.  “Packaging American Dreams.” Washington Post 13 June 1976: M3.
  • Edlin, Mari.  St. Louis Jewish Light. 15 September 1976.
  • Elliott, George P.  “Fiction and Anti-fiction.” American Scholar 47 (Summer 1978): 398-406.
  • Firestone, Bruce.  Library Journal  101 (July 1976): 1555.
  • Gass, William H.  “Stanley Elkin’s The Franchiser.”  New Republic 28 (June 1980): 29-32.  Also the Foreword to the Godine and Dalkey editions.
  • Gidding, Josh.  “The Business of America,” San Francisco Review of Books [n.d.]: 7-9.
  • Gold, Ivan.  “Elkin a many-talented writer, but glitter seems to fade.”  Boston Sunday Globe. 25 July 1976: A15.
  • Granetz, Marc. “Franchised Fiction.” Harvard Independent 30 September 1976.
  • Heilbut, Anthony, “Drug Addicts and Cultural Illiterates.”  The Nation 28 August 1976: 151-152.
  • Koenig, Rhoda.  “Cheap Reads.” New York 7 (July 1980): 79.
  • LeClair, Tom.  “The Franchiser by Stanley Elkin.” New Republic 174 (12 June 1976): 27.
  • _____. “Books to Borrow, Books to Keep.”  Cincinnati Enquirer n.d,
  •  Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher.  “Books of the Times.” New York Times 21 May 1976: C23.
  • Leonard, John.  “Dreams on Credit.”  Saturday Review 29 May 1976: 33-4.
  • Levine, Martin. “Unearthing Individuality,” Newsday 16 June 1976.
  • Lewis, Stuart.  “New Novel is Moving and Funniest of the Year.” Kansas City Jewish Chronicle 24 September 1976.
  • Milder, Phyllis. Best Sellers 36 (October 1976): 211-212.
  • Miller, Alicia Metcalf.  “Americana, 1976, served on a bun.”  Cleveland Plain Dealer 20 June 1976.
  • Miller, Nolan.  Antioch Review 34 (Summer 1976): 506.
  • Morris, Joe Alex.  “America Under microscope is funny, boring.” Hartford Times 11 July 1976.
  • Murray, G.E. fiction international 6-7 (1976): 153-153.
  • Norris, Hoke.  “Elkin’s fictional Franchising.” Chicago Daily News (Panorama) 29-30 May 1976.
  • Olson. Clarence E. “America the Homogenized”  St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  30 May 1976: 4B.
  • Quigley, Martin.  “Will of flesh and Franchise.”  St. Louis Globe-Democrat 19-20 June 19 1976.
  • Ross, James.  “The American Zombie Portrayed.”  Greenboro Daily News 13 June 1976.
  • Sheppard, R. Z. “A Poet of Profit and Loss.”  Time 24 May 1976: 88.  Excerpted as “The Critics Are Saying,” New York Post 5 June 1976: 33
  • Towers, Robert.  “The Franshiser.”  New York Times Book Review 13 June 1976: 5, 22, 24.
  • Ullman, Leslie.  “Here’s to the Ordinary – With Virtuosity.”  Kansas City Star 20 June 1976.
  • Uns. “A Memorable Man Emerges.”  Baltimore News-American 4 July 1976.
  • Uns. Booklist 1 July 1976: 1510.
  • Uns. Cultural Information Service.  September 1976: 18-19.
  • Uns. Erie Times-News (PA) 25 July 1976
  • Uns.  “Franchiser is unusual.”  Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette 13 June 1976.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 44 (15 March 1976): 341.
  • Uns. Literature-Criticism September 1976.
  • Uns. National Observer  15 (12 June 1976): 21.
    Uns. “Notes on Current Books,” Virginia Quarterly Fall 1976:  134
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly 209 (19 April 1976): 78.
  • Uns. “Reviewers Choices: Top Books of the Year.”  Cleveland Plain-Dealer 5 December 1976.
  • Uns. “Reviews in Brief,” Chicago Sun-Times 20 June 1976.
  • Uns.  Virginia Quarterly Review 52 (Autumn 1976): 134.
  • Weigel, John A.  “Talking, Traveling, Caring for the Losers.”  Cincinnati Enquirer 20 June 1976.
  • Wood, Michael, “The Wild Blue Yonder,” New York Review of Books 5 August 1976: 36.
  • Wolff, Geoffrey.  “Topping the Tank.”  New Times, 25 June 1976: 70.

The Living End (1979).

  • Allen, Bruce.  “Discovering the comic pleasures of death.”  Chicago Tribune 8 July 1979.
  • Anderson, Elliott.  “Doomsday Comedy.” Chicago Sun-Times 17 June 1979.
  • Anissimov.  “D’un auteur L’Autre.”  Le Nouvel Observateur 21 May 1981.
  • Attix, Evelyn,  Spiritual Studies Center August 1979.
  • Bailey, Paul.  “The quick and the dead.” Times Literary Supplement 18 January 1980: 54,
  • Bailey, Peter.  “Stanley Elkin “The Living End”.” fiction international (1980): 274-276.
  • Barton, Rick.  The Cresset December 1979: 30.
  • Baxter,. Tom. “God Is Fun, Expansive In His Heavenly Trade.”  The Atlanta Constitution 29 July 1979.
  • Bawdin, Nina.  “Recent Fiction.” Daily Telegraph, n.d.
  • B.H.H., “Elkin’s outrageous fun with afterlife.”  Anniston Star 17 June 1979.
  • Brown, Robert.  “Music, When Soft Voices Die.” New York 18 June 1979: 70-71.
  • Burke, Jeffrey,  “The Mischief of Fiction.”  Harper’s July 1979: 78-81.  
  • Caldwell, Peggy.  “Wise Guy in Paradise.” Louisville Times 7 July 1979.
  • Carideo, Anthony P.  “Dante for Today.” Milwaukee Journal 22 June 1979.
  • Clark, Jeff.  Library Journal 1 May 1979: 1076.
  • Crawley, Phillip.  “White House Mole Run.” Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Journal January 1980.
  • Des Pres, Terrence.  “To Hell and Back with Stanley Elkin.” Washington Post Book World 1 July 1979: F1, 4.
  • Dretzka, Gary, “A Novel that devilishly hams it up at “The Living End””  Los Angeles Herald-Examiner 10 June 1979.
  • Domermuth, Miriam.  “A Comedic Look into Living and Dying.” Charlotte [NC] Observer 1 July 1979.
  • Dunlap, “Elkin’s Cult of Outrage.” Seattle Times 2 September 1979. 
  • Edlin, Mari.  “’Living End’ Author Stanley Elkin Refuses to be Labeled.”  St. Louis Jewish Light 1 August 1979: 7.
  • Eyrich, Clare.  “The Living End.”  Fort Worth Star Telegram 15 July 1979.
  • Frakes, James R.  “God visits Hell: ‘Hi, hot enough for you?’”  Cleveland Plain Dealer 8 July 1979.
  • Gass, William H.   “The Infinite’s jest: Stanley Elkin imagines the after life.”  Harper’s, May 2004: 92-96, 98.
  • Geisheker, Mary R.  “Hell, in living color.”  Baltimore Evening Sun 8 July 1979.
  • Géniès, “L’étrange enfer de Stanley Elkin.” Le Monde 3 April 1981.
  • Gingher, Robert.  “Stanley Elkin’s helluva tale.”  Greensboro Daily News 12 August 1979.
  • Goodwin, Michael.  “The Living End.”  The Tennessean 1 July 1979.
  • Graham, Mark.  “Novel Light, Enjoyable.” Rocky Mountain News  5 August 1979.
  • Grumbach, Doris.  “A Season Redolent of Worthy Fiction.”  25 June 1979: R12-13.
  • Harris, Daisy.  “’Living End’:  God explains in funny book.” Dayton Daily News 8 August 1979.
  • Heller, Richard.  “Hell in Minneapolis?” The Citizen Register [Ossining NY] 24 July 1979.
  • Hill, Reginald.  “Heavenly Novels.” Books and Bookmen March 1980: 21-22,
  • Hogan, William.  “Life After Life.”  San Francisco Chronicle 13 July 1979.
  • Houston, Levin.  “Offensive novel.”  Fredericksburg [VA] Free-lance-Star 18 August 1979.
  • Howland, John, Jr.  ““The Living End”: a Tryptch by Stanley Elkin.”  Vermont Free Press 1 July 1979.
  • Irving, John.  “An Exposé of Heaven and Hell.”  New York Times Book Review 10 June 1979: 7, 30.
  • Kennedy, Joseph Patrick.  “Elkin: to hell on a technicality.” Houston Chronicle 19 August 1979.
  • Kermode, Frank.  “Love and Do As You Please.” New York Review of Books 16 August 1979: 44-45.
  • Kissel, “The Living End.” Women’s Wear Daily 24 May 1979.
  • Klien, Woody.  “His novels sweat and burn, they virtually reek of humanity.” Bennington[VT] Banner 11 August 1979.
  • LeClair, Tom.  “The Living End.” Saturday Review 13 October 1979: 75.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher.  “Books of the Times.”  New York Times 25 May1979: 247-248.
  • Levine, Martin.  “A Fantasy Set in Heaven, Hell, and Minneapolis.” Newsday 10 June 1976.
  • Levy, Michael M.  “The Living End.” Minnesota Daily 6 August 1979.
  • MacNamee, Max.  “A Pure Delight.”  The Hartford Courant 24 June 1979.
  • MacVicar, Bill.  “Updated Dante in Minneapolis.”  Macleans 20 August 1979: 38.
  • Maguire, John. “Elkin takes readers on tour of the afterlife.”  Springfield [MA] Sunday Republican 22 July 1979: 18.
  • Manning, Margaret.  “A Stanley Elkin novel that is both weird and lifeless.” Boston Globe 7 June 1979.
  • Marcus, Greil.  “San Francisco’s Days of Rage.” Rolling Stone 12 July 1979: 50.
  • Massie, Alan,  “Splendid Hokum.” The Scotsman 19 January 1980.
  • McKinley, Maryann U.  “A ‘spiffy’ God in man’s (distorted) image.”  National Catholic Reporter 23 May 1980: 13.
  • Middleton, Harry, “Elkin’s Hell: ‘The Ultimate Inner City.’”  Figaro 10 October 1979.
  • Milazzo, Lee, “Stanley Elkin on life, death and the afterlife.” Dallas Morning News 8 July 1979.
  • Miner, Tom.  “Heaven and Hell Are Very Much Like Minneapolis-St. Paul.”  The Sacramento Bee 17 July 1979.
  • Morrow, Sara.  “’Doomsday’ Gets Light Touch in Elkin’s Imaginative Work,” Nashville Banner 14 July 1979.
  • Murray, G.E., “The Living End.”  Chicago Magazine September 1979: 114, 116, 118. 
  • Naughton, John.  “Outrageous.” The Listener [UK] 14 February 1980: 222.
  • Nesbitt, W. J.  “Enclosed Order.” Darlington Northern Echo. [U.K.] 18 January 1980.
  • Olson, Clarence E.  “Holy Ghost Writer.”  St. Louis Post-Dispatch 3 June 1979.
  • Pieiller, Evelyne.  “Parfaitement Sournois et Déconcertant.”  La Quinzaine Littéraire 15 March 1981: 6-7.
  • Plummer, William.  “The Living End and Searches and Seizures by Stanley Elkin.”  New Republic 23 June1979: 33-35.
  • Prescott, Peter S.  “Books.” Newsweek 8 June 1979: 83-84.
  • Quigly, Isabel.  “Pecula’s Peculations” [reviewed with Toni Morrison’s  The Bluest Eye] Financial Times [London] 26 Jan 1980. 
  • Robinson, Malcolm.  “Highlights from heaven.” Rutgers Daily 11 October 1979.
  • Rossiter, Kieth. “ ‘Go to hell,’, says St. Peter.” Oxford Mail 2 February 1980.
  • Rothschild, Sylvia.  “Reviews and Reflections,” Boston Jewish Advocate 16 August 1979.
  • Sabatini, Arthur J.  “Delirium in three layers.”  Philadelphia Inquirer 8 July 1979.
  • Sheppard, R. Z.  “Life after Afterlife.”  Time 4 June 1979: 74, 76.
  • Shoemaker, Steven.  “A Comedy of Heaven and Hell.” The New Review of Books and Religion IV (November 1979): 6.
  • Simon, Jeff.  “An Irascible Stanley Elkin Views Earth, Heaven, Hell.” Buffalo Evening News 8 July 1979. 
  • Stokes, Geoffrey, “Short Circuits.” Village Voice 20 August 1979: 82.
  • Strahan, Don.  “A 6-o’clock news look at heaven and hell.” Los Angeles Times Book Review 15 July 1979. 
  • Stronach, Margaret.  “God, man, and Stanley Elkin.”  The Literary Review 17 April 1980.
  • Sykes, Geraldine.  “Book Reviews,” Huddersfield Examiner  n.d.
  • Uns. ”Briefly noted,”  The New Yorker, n.d.
  • Uns.  Booklist 1 July 1979: 1569.
  • Uns. “God, the Artist.” Cultural Information Service 30 August 1979.
  • Uns. “Heaven and Hell.” Midlands Business Journal 6 July 1979.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 15 April 1979: 465.
  • Uns.  The New Yorker 25 June 1979: 105.
  • Uns.  Publisher’s Weekly 30 April 1979: 109.
  • Uns. “A review of “The Living End”.” Subject to Change 24 October 1979.
  • Von Blon, Joanne.  “Twin Cities ‘tourists’ travel to Heaven & Hell.” Minneapolis Tribune 8 July 1979.
  • Wadsworth, Christopher.  “Chaos with Unicorns.” Manchester Guardian 14 February 1982.
  • Weir, Alison.  “Hot and high pursuit of public faces.”  Glasgow Herald 24 January 1980. 
  • White, Terrence de Vere.  “A Merry Soul.”  The Irish Times 2 February 1980.
  • Wolff, Geoffrey.  “Heaven and Superhell: Elkin’s Vision of the Afterlife.” Esquire 19 June 1979: 13-14.  

Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits (1980).

  • Bromley, Robin.  “Book Briefs.” Saturday Review, November 1980: 72.
  • Corddry, Tom.  [Seattle] The Weekly Reader.  10 December 1980.
  • Gray, Paul.  “Two Serious Comic Writers  [ also A Philip Roth Reader].”  Time 10 November 1980.
  • Hardy, Quentin R.  “An introduction to the wonderful, implausible world of Stanley Elkin.”  The Seattle Times 22 February 1981.
  • Harris, Robert R.  “A Master of Comedy Hits Again.”  Washington Star 28 December 1980.
  • Higgins, Fitzgerald.  “Stanley Elkin’s Greatest Hits” Grand Rapids [MI] Press 8 February 1981.
  • Hooper, William Bradley.  Booklist 1 November 1980.
  • Kaplan, Sam,  “Fine madness from Stanley Elkin.” Los Angeles Times. 14 February 1980.
  • Kellythorne, Walther.  “Mapping Absurd.” Victoria Daily Colonist.  7 February 1981.
  • Milazzo, Lee.  “Witty, not-so-witty fiction from Charyn, Kotzwinkle, Elkin.” Dallas Morning News 16 November 1980.
  • Moore, Paul.  “A tall-teller deserving of a wider audience.” Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  1 February 1981.
  • Pinsker, Saul.  “Power of Language.” Reconstructionist June 1981.
  • Sebak, Richard.  “Elkin’s Collection Makes Reader Think and Laugh.” The State [Columbia, SC], 28 December 1980.
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly 31 October 1980.
  • Uns. Virginia Quarterly Review 57 (Summer 1981): 103.
  • Zelas, Kent.  “Elkin’s Divine Comedy.” LA Herald Examiner. 14 December 1980.

George Mills (1982).

  • Ardizzone, Tony. “The world according to Stanley Elkin.”  Norfolk (VA) Pilot-Ledger Star 12 December 1982.
  • J.B. “George Mills’s function: To Observe and Survive.” Youngstown (OH) Vindicator  28 November 1982.
  • Bandler,  Michael J. “Books.” The American Way December 1982 [American Airlines].
  • Barnum, John. “Of Books and Authors.”  John Barnum Reviews [n.d.].
  • Baxter, Tom. “Laughter, tears for the second class.”  Atlanta Journal and Constitution 14 November 1982.
  • Cawley, Joseph A.  Best Sellers. December 1982: 332.
  • Clark, Jeff. Library Journal 1 September 1982: 1675.
  • Connaroe, Joel. “Stanley Elkin’s St. Louis Everyman,” Washington Post Book World 10 October 1982.  Reprinted, International Herald-Tribune 21 October 1982: 1,11.
  • Cryer, Dan. “Homage to the Little Guy: 1,000 Years of Blue Collars.” Newsday 31 October 1982.  Reprinted as “Elkin: a Proust of the ‘little guy.’” Des Moines Register 14 November 1982.
  • Epstein, Lesley. “Generations of Horrible Fun.” New York Times Book Review 31 October 1982: 11, 30-31.
  • Erickson, Steve. Elkin is a tour guide of the mind.” Los Angeles Herald Examiner 2 January 1983.
  • Frakes, James R. “Elkin’s Gallows Humor.” Cleveland Plain Dealer 2 January 1983.
  • Garchik, Leah. “An Enslaved Everyman” San Francisco Chronicle 23 January 1983.
  • Gold, Charles. Elkin’s Comic Humanity.”  Chicago Sun-Times [n.d.]
  • Hall, Barbara Hodge. ““The Blue Collar Curse is theme of Elkin novel.” Anniston Star 23 Nov 1982.
  • Harris, Mark. “Elkin’s amusing fantasy sold as a classic before its time.” Chicago Tribune Bookworld 10 October 1982.
  • Hartman, David E. “An unbroken chain of blue collars.”  St. Petersburg Times 14 November 1982.
  • Hooper, William Bradley. Booklist July 1982: 1393.
  • James, Caryn. “Stanley Elkin’s Deli Delight.” Village Voice 26 October 1982: 52.
  • Jones, Martha E.  Kliatt Paperback Guide January 1984: 8.
  • Kennedy, Joseph Patrick. “Elkin: the human spirit, hoping to complete that long distance call” Houston Chronicle.  31 October 1982.
  • LeClair, Thomas.  Untitled.  New Republic. 27 December 1982: 32-38.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Books of the Times.” New York Times 20 October 1982: 25.
  • Lutz, Fred. “A Blue_Collar Destiny is Repeated.” Toledo Blade 9 January 1983.
  • Marshall, Leslie. “Ever Hear of Elkin? You Will Now.”  USA Today 10 December 1982.
  • McCaffrey, Larry. “”Mills’ is an Elkinsian delight.” San Diego Union 21 August 1983.
  • Milazzo, Lee. “Stanley Elkin’s new novel gives us humor with heart.” Dallas Morning News 7 November 1982.
  • Milovsky, David. “The Fiction of Powerlessness.” Prairie Schooner Summer 1983: 97-100.
  • Murray, G.E.  Chicago  December 1982: 134-136.
  • Olson, Clarence. “Elkin’s Rich Saga OF Blue-Collar Blood.” Saint Louis Post-Dispatch 26 Sept 1982.
  • Owens, Brad. “History’s Straight Man.” The Christian Science Monitor 9 February 1983: 15.
  • Pinsker, Sanford.  Southern Humanities Review 17 (Summer 1983): 276-278.
  • Plummer, William. “A Fall Harvest of Fiction” Newsweek 25 October 1982: 117-118.
  • Popkin-Paine, Linda. “Putting yourself through the Mill(s), from the Middle Ages to the Middle class.”  Houston Post 1 November 1982.
  • Rubins, Josh. “Variety Shows” New York Review of Books 16 December 1982: 46-48.
  • Schumaker, Michael. “Elkin’s Biting Bits” Milwaukee Journal 28 November 1982.
  • Sheppard, R. Z. “A Fall Harvest of Fiction.” Time 1 November 1982: 79.
  • Simon, Jeff. “Woody Allen Better on Celluloid than Paper.” Buffalo News 28 November 1982.
  • Slipper, Ralph B. “A laborer lost at the curb of history.”  Los Angeles Times 31 August 1982: 3.
  • Strausbaugh, John. “The world, Elkin implies, is just a branch office of a vast bureaucracy.”  Baltimore City Paper 24 December 1982.
  • Taliaferro, Frances. “Lyricist of the Lunch Pail.” Harpers November 1982: 75-75.
  • Theroux, Alexander. “Quirks, quips, quotatoes; tasteless, topical, tired.” Boston Globe 31 October 1982.
  • Trachtenberg, Stanley. “A victim of history: Stanley Elkin’s common man.”  Dallas Times Herald 5 December 1982.
  • Tucker, Ken. “A Cult Offering for Elkin Fans.” Philadelphia Inquirer 31 October 1982.
  • Uns. ALA Booklist July 1982.
  • Uns.  America 29 January 1983: 62.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 15 August 1982: 948.
  • Uns. “Pick of the Paperbacks.” Cultural Information Service 17 October 1983.
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly.  20 August 1982: 58.
  • Uns. Southern Humanities Review [n.d.]
  • Wellejus, Ed. “Bookshelf.” Erie (PA) Times 12 December 1982.

The Magic Kingdom originally published as “Stanley Elkin’s the Magic Kingdom” (1985).

  • Adams, Robert M. “The Story Isn’t Over,” New York Review of Books 18 July 1985: 20-23.
  • Anderson, Jean.  “Elkin performs feats of language.” Heartland 22 September 1985: H-7.
  • Apple, Max. “Having Their Last Good Time.” New York Times Book Review 24 March 1985: 34.
  • Berger, Joseph.  “Defeating the Temptation of Sentimentality.”  New York Times Book Review 24 March 1985: 34.
  • Berkley, Miriam. “Tears and Laughter from Wizard Elkin.” The Plain Dealer 21 April 1985.
  • Boker, Pamela. “’I’m Candy’” Houston Chronicle 19 May 1985.
  • Buzbee, Lewis. “Laughing Back into Death’s Face.” San Francisco Examiner-Chronicle 14 April 1985.
  • Clark, Jeff. “Stanley Elkin’s Magic Kingdom.” Library Journal. 110 (April 1985): 85.
  • Connelly, Sherryl. “Tender Laughter at the Doors of Death.”  The Daily News 29 February 1985:  Leisure 7.
  • Cryer, Dan. “A Genius for Making Music Out of the Macabre” Newsday 17 March 1985.
  • Curcio, Christine. “Novel About Sick Kids Black Comedy.” Night Times (Univ of Pittsburgh) October 1985.
  • Donavin, Denise P. Booklist. 1 February 1985: 738.
  • Eder, Richard. “The Magic Kingdom,” International Herald Tribune, 1 April 1985. Also Los Angeles Times 24 March 1985.
  • Geeslin, Campbell.  People Weekly 23 (6 May 1985): 16.
  • Gold, Charles H. “A Tough, Funny Tale of Doomed Children.” Chicago Sun-Times, Book Week  31 March 1985: 26.
  • B.H.H. The Anniston Star 7 April 1985: 4D
  • Havenick, Robin. “Dying Children Find meaning in magic kingdom”  Roseburg (OR)  News-Review 26 May 1985.
  • Hildebrand, Holly. “Instilling hope, love among black humor in ‘Magic Kingdom’  Houston Post 5 May 1985.
  • Holliday, Barbara. “Children are the heroes on odd odyssey” Detroit Free Press 28 April 1985.
  • Hoover, Hal and Clara. Voya December 1985.
  • Houston, James. “Elkin’s Demons”  San Jose Mercury News 24 March 1985.
  • Houston, Levin. “Elkin’s expertise evident.”  Fredericksburg (VA) Free Lance Star 14 May 1985.
  • Jones, Malcolm. “Stanley Elkin’s Magic Kingdom,” St. Petersburg Times 7 April 1985, D1,7.
  • Kiser, Thelma Scott , “Books,” Ashland (KY) Sunday Independent 14 April 1985.
  • Kissel, Howard. “Stanley Elkin Journeys to darkest Disney World.” Women’s Wear Daily 7 August 1985, 28.
  • Koch, Stephen. “The Dark Side of Mickey Mouse.” Washington Post Book World 14 April 1985.
  • Langston Sherrie.  “The Magic Kingdom Full of Life’s Absurdities,” The Paris News 20 May 1985.
  • A.G.L., “New Paperbacks.” Jersey Journal 19 February 1986.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher. “Books of The Times,” New York Times Arts/Entertainment 18 May 1985: Y 17.
  • Lescaze, Lee. “Voyage to the End at Disney World.” Wall Street Journal 12 April 1985.
  • Licklider, Deborah. “Darkly Humorous Tale in an Unlikely Setting.” Philadelphia Daily News 2 April 1985.
  • Lindberg, Ted. “Beyond Human Horror,” Washington Times 22 April 1985.
  • Link, Kimberly “Sardonic ‘dream holiday’ makes for bizarre reading.” Chicago Heights IL Star 5 May 1985.
  • Malin, Irving. “Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom,”  Hollins Critic (February 1986): 13.
  • Martone, Michael. “Believe It:  SE and the Out-Jesusing of Fiction.” Denver Quarterly Summer 1985: 118-25.
  • Mather, Bobby. “On Books,” Oakland Press 24 March 1985.
  • Milazzo, Lee. “Power of love permeates odd tale of ‘Magic Kingdom’” Dallas Morning News 21 April 1985.
  • Morgan, Stephen. “A time to laugh, a time to die in ‘The Magic Kindgom’”  Boston Herald 14 April 1985.
  • Murray, G. E. “Last Laugh at Disney World.”  Chicago 34 (April 1985): 124.
  • Olson, Nancy. “Dying Kids in Disney World.” Milwaukee Journal 7 April 1985:
  • Perrin, Noel. “Stanley Elkin Meets Mickey Mouse.” USA Today 22 March 1985: 3D.
  • Post, Clarence. “A Last Hurrah For The Children,” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 17 March 1985: 4B.
  • Puckett, Daniel. “The Magic Kingdom: an improbable comedy about children and death.”  Bryan College Station Eagle 30 March 1985. 
  • Reefer, Mary M.,“Tender tale of death in celebration of life.” Kansas City Star 12 May 1985: 1E, 9E.
  • Robertson, William. “Stanley Elkin’s manic world and verbal fury.”  Miami Herald 31 March 1985.
  • Schleier, Curt. “On Dangerous Terrain,” Grand Rapids Press 28 April 1985.
  • Schwartz, Lynne Sharon. “Stanley Elkin’s ‘Magic Kingdom’ a Hell on Earth.” Chicago Tribune Book World 21 April 1985.
  • Seabrook, John. “Freaks.” The Nation 240 (1 June 1985): 681-2.
  • Sechrist, Laura. “Elkin/’s ‘Magic’ bizarre.” Columbus Dispatch 28 April 1985.
  • Simmons, Charles. “Death Be Not Fun.” Vogue 175 (April 1985): 234.
  • Thomas, Sidney. “Stanley Elkin’s The Magic Kingdom” Atlanta Journal and Constitution 21 April 1985.
  • Tyler, Anne. “Stanley and the horror factory.” Detroit News 14 April 1985.
  • Uns. ALA Booklist 1 February 1985.
  • Uns. “The Best of 1985.” Newsday 8 December 1985.
  • Uns. Cultural Information Service 31 May 1985: 7-8
  • Uns. “Here’s some of the year’s best in fact and fiction” Miami Herald 11 December 1985.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 15 January 1985. 
  • Uns. New Yorker 61 (8 April 1961): 128.
  • Uns. “Paperbacks.”  Chicago Tribune 25 May 1986.
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly 1 February 1985: 347.
  • Walton, David. “’Magic Kingdom’ bogs down in beery declamations.” Pittsburgh Press 24 July 1985.
  • Wolcott, James.  “Final Fling.” Vanity Fair April 1985: 95.
  • Wyatt, Robert. “Strong Medicine: ‘Magic Kingdom’.” Nashville Tennessean 14 July 1985.
  • Yanovsky. Joel. “Melancholy Truth Exposed in Novel.” Calgary (Alberta) Herald 19 May 1985.
  • Yurick, Sol. “2 modern tales that mock fate in surreal worlds,” Philadelphia Inquirer Books/Leisure 9 June 1985: 1,6.
  • Zand, Nicole. “Mourir à Disneyworld.”  Le Monde 19 February 1993.

The Rabbi of Lud (1987).

  • Burgin, Richard.  “The rabbi’s rhetoric.” St, Petersburg Times  13 December 1987.
  • Carb, Alison B.  “Oy vey?  The Rabbi’s backyard is a cemetery.” Boston Herald, 22 November 1987.
  • Connaroe, Joel.  “Elkin:  the kidder’s kaddish.” USA Today 20 November 1987.
  • Craig, Paul.  “The Rabbi of Lud leaves ‘em vexed.”  McClatchy News Service [n.d.]
  • Cryer, Dan.  “Rueful Slapstick and Jewish Funerals.” Newsday 2 November 1987.
  • Dowling, Tom.  “An author’s universe of untrammeled hysteria.” San Francisco Examiner 19 November 1989. 
  • Eder, Richard. “Plot Finds Despair in Rabbi’s Cemetery.” LA Times 28 October 1987
  • Getto, Dennis. “Rabbi’s Tale.”  Milwaukee Journal, 20 December 1987.
  • Gold, Charles.  “Elkin’s ferociously funny story carries many blessings.” Chicago Sun-Times Book Week 4 October 1986
  • Grossman, Ron.  “People are dying to meet Rabbi of Lud.” Philadelphia Inquirer 16 December  1987.
  • Harris, Roger,  “A joyous shtick inspires “The Rabbi of Lud.” Newark Star Ledger. [n.d.]
  • Hall, Barbara Hodge.  “Elkin pens a comic masterpiece.” The Anniston Star 8 November 1987.
  • Koenig, Rhoda.  “Books.” New York 12 October 1987.
  • Krieger, Elliot.  “Elkin’s latest novel a wildly uneven ride.”  Providence Sunday Journal.  [nd]
  • Lauzen, Sarah, E.  “Death Is His Life.” Chicago January 1988: 123-4.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher.  “Books of the Times.” New York Times 29 October 1987.
  • Madden, David.  “The Picaro as a Klutz.” San Francisco Chronicle.  8 November 1987.
  • Muro, Mark. “The baffling brilliance of Stanley Elkin.”  The Boston Globe. 26 November 1987.
  • Olson, Clarence E.  “Pipeline to Death Filled with Wit and Irony.” St, Louis Post-Dispatch 1 November 1987.
  • Reefer, Mary M.  “ ‘Rabbi’ of Lud devoted to death.” Kansas City Star 29 November 1987.
  • Rothe, Louise.  “Humorous Novel Introduces Rabbi.”  Chattanooga News-Free Press 29 November 1987.
  • Schechner, Mark.  “ ‘The Rabbi of Lud’: Tasteless, Delightful.” Buffalo News 13 November 1987.
  • Uns. Booklist 15 October 1987.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 1 September 1987.
  • Uns. Library Journal 15 October 1987.
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly  [n.d.]
  • Uns.  “The Rabbi of Lud.” Biloxi Sun-Herald 6 December 1987.
  • West, Paul.  “The Many Voices of Stanley Elkin.” Washington Post 29 November 1987.

Reviews of “Notes Toward a Eulogy for Joan Cohen,” (1987-1988 season).

  • Baker, Martha.  “Words To Move You.” Connoisseur [n.d.].
  • Pollack, Joe. “A New Turn of Phrase for Elkin.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch [n.d.]
  • Wierzbicki, James.  “Dance Troupe Interprets Elkin Story.” St Louis Post-Dispatch 11 May 1987.

The MacGuffin (1991).

  • Bowden, Mark,  “A dizzying ride with a streets commissioner from Podunk.” Philadelphia Inquirer 31 March 1991.
  • Costro, Joseph.  “Arias of Angst.” Chicago Tribune 17 March 1991.
  • Cryer, Dan.  “A Highbrow Mystery without a Solution.” New York Newsday 11 March 1991.
  • Dachslager,. Earl L.  “Decline of Bobbo Druff:  Elkin’s Excess has Few Rewards.”  Houston Chronicle 7 April 1991.
  • Dirda, Michael.  “Bobbo Druff’s Last Stand.”  Washington Post 10 March 1991.
  • Dolan, Mark.  “Jazz-like rhythms syncopate prose.” Florida Times-Union [Jacksonville] 16 June 1991.
  • Eder, Richard. “Age Before Duty.” Los Angeles Times 10 March 1991, syndicated as “Middle Age Catches up with Everyman.” Sun-Sentinel 24 March 1991.
  • Edwards, Thomas R.  “Behind Gravity’s back.” New Republic 20 May 1991.
  • Feeney, Mark.  “Leopold Bloom in a Limousine.” Boston Globe 3 March 1991.
  • Gold, Charles H.  “The Terror of Living:  a brilliant, Byzantine novel from Stanley Elkin.” Chicago Sun-Times Book Week 24 March 1991.
  • Gray, Paul.  “A Spring Bouquet of Fiction,” Time 25 March 1991.
  • Hall, Barbara Hodge.  “ ‘MacGuffin’ funny, poignant story.” Anniston [AL] Star  3 March 1991.
  • Hathaway, Steven.  “The MacGuffin” is full of flair, humor.”  The Wichita Eagle 5 May 1991.
  • Koenig, Rhoda.  “The MacGuffin.” New York 25 February 1991.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher, “Somewhere Between Hell and Disney World.”  New York Times 18 February 1991.
  • Maniston, Charles G. “Getting there is all the fun.” Kansas City Star 7 July 1991.
  • Miller, Mark.  “Comic Novel ‘MacGuffin’ takes reader on MacCoca fantasy trip.” Washington Times Books 18 March 1991.
  • Moore, Lonnie.  “Bobbo Druff’s Alcoholic Vaudeville.” New York Times Book Review 10 March 1991.
  • Morace, Robert.  “The MacGuffin.”  Magill Book Reviews for Dow Jones Retrieval.
  • Norman, Geoffrey.  “What’s Good From the Garden.” American Way 1 April 1991.
  • Olson, Clarence E.  “Deep, Dark Magic of Stanley Elkin.” St Louis Post-Dispatch 3 March 1991.
  • Peters, Ross.  “The MacGuffin.”  The Review [University City/Philadelphia] 28 June 1991.
  • Rodgers, Judson.  “The MacGuffin.” Bookpage Review  April 1991.
  • Salm, Arthur.  “Elkin brings in a “MacGuffin’ for comic mischief.” San Diego Tribune 1 March 1991.
  • Seaman, Donna.  “The MacGuffin.”  Booklist  1 January 1991.
  • Seeyle., John.  “Seriously Funny.” Chicago March 1991.
  • Simpson, Peter.  “Elkin’s ‘MacGuffin’ strikes a bit too close to home for reviewer.”  West End World 4 April 1991
  • Snider, Eric.  “A Man in the Middle.” St. Petersburg Times 31 March 1991.
  • Uns. “Briefly Noted” The New Yorker 2 April 1991.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 1 January 1991.
  • Uns. Library Journal 1 February 1991.
  • Uns. Publisher’s Weekly 28 January 1991.
  • Weiner, Richard.  “Tripping through Paranoia.” Review 17 February 1991.
  • Winn, David.  “Brain Music.” American Book Reviews February/March 1991.

Pieces of Soap: Essays by Stanley Elkin (1992).

  • Craig, Paul.  “Brilliant writing from a quirky curmudgeon.” Houston Post 22 March 1992.
  • Cryer, Dan.  “Remembrance Of Goofiness Past.”  Newsday 17 February 1992.
  • Dougherty, David C. “Pieces of Soap: Essays by Stanley Elkin.”  The Old Northwest 16 (1992).
  • Drew, Bettina.  “Virtuoso Digressions.” Chicago 1992.
  • Edmundson, Mark,  “Stanley Elkin and All That Jazz.” Washington Post Book World 29 March 1992.
  • Greenberg, Cara.  “Future Worth: Before It’s Hot, Grab It.”  New York Times 27 February 1992.
  • Johnson, David R.  “Pieces of Soap.”  America 12 December 1992.
  • Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher,  “New Fun with Whoopee Cushions.” New York Times 13 February 1992.
  • Morace, Robert.  “Pieces of Soap.”  Magill Book Reviews for Dow Jones News. [n.d.]
  • Moore, Steven, “Stanley Elkin, Pieces of Soap.” Review of Contemporary Fiction [n.d.]: 240-41.
  • Olson, Clarence E.  “The Challenge of a Passionate Intelligence.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch 16 February 1992.
  • Sachs, Lloyd.  “Elkin, Byatt:  Essays of bite and of bland.”  Chicago Sun-Times Book Week 9 February 1992.
  • Simon, Jeff, “The Craft of the Essay, Resplendent.”  Buffalo News 23 February 1992.
  • Steelye, John.  “Lives of the Party.”  Chicago February 1992.
  • Taylor, Robert.  “Stanley Elkin, wise man and wise guy.” Boston Globe 19 February 1992.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews.   15 December 1991.
  • Uns. Publishers’ Weekly 3 December 1991.
  • Walters, Colin.  “Essayist Elkin Lathers his ‘Soap.’”  Washington Times 1 March 1992.

Van Gogh’s Room at Arles: Novellas (1993).

  • Beattie, L. Elisabeth.  “Stanley Elkin’s brilliance wins out over tediousness.”  Lexington Herald-Leader 11 April 1993.
  • Brick, Julie,  “Stanley Elkin tests extreme of human need.”  Montreal Gazette 10 April 1993.
  • Buzbee, Lewis. “The Chaos Theory: Stanley Elkin gets crabby.” San Francisco Bay Guardian Literary Supplement March 1993.
  • Di Bernardi, Dominic.  “3 novellas with an eye for the comic in people and predicaments.”  Philadelphia Inquirer 9 March 1993.
  • Dougherty, David C. “Van Gogh’s Room at Arles: Three Novellas.” Studies in Short Fiction  31 (1994): 115-116.
  • Eckoff, Sally S. “Van Gogh’s Room at Arles.” Voice Literary Supplement 1 June 1993.
  • Gates, Dominic.  “Briefly.” Seattle Times 13 June 1993.
  • Gowen, Anne.  “What’s Missing from the ‘Room’?”  Washington Times 30 March 1993.
  • Graham, Phillip.  “Stanley Elkin’s Displaced Persons.”  Chicago Tribune Books 21 February 1993.
  • Hall, Barbara Hodge.  “ “Van Gogh’s Room’ quintessential Elkin.” Anniston Star 28 May 1993.
  • Kakutani, Michico.  “People with Bad Luck and Even Worse Behavior.” New York Times 23 February 1993: C15.
  • Kelman, Suzanne.  “On the cutting edge.”  Toronto Globe and Mail 20 May 1993.
  • Lemon, Lee.  Prairie Schooner Summer 1994.
  • Marx, Bill.  “Voice Virtuoso,” Boston Phoenix Literary Section April 1993.
  • Moore, Steven. ““Falling down and calling up” Boston Herald 28 March 1993; syndicated as “Pop Culture spices Stanley Elkin novellas.” Rocky Mountain News 25 April 1993.
  • Olsen, Clarence.  “A Serving of Elkin Lite.”  St. Louis Post-Dispatch 11 April 1993.
  • Prose, Francine.  “Fiction in Review.” The Yale Review 81: 1993.
  • Reed, Ronald.  “Characters in the dark, searching for disaster.”  Fort Worth Star-Telegram 11 April 1993.
  • Scharper, Diane.  “Gulping down rich feast of Elkin’s prose.” Baltimore Sun 16 June 1993.
  • Taylor, Robert.  “Elkin’s novellas are filled with heart, humor.”  Nashville Tennessean 16 May 1993.
  • Uns. “Briefly Noted.” Saturday Review [n.d.]
  • Uns. “Editors’ Choice: Books for vacation Reading.” New York Times Book Review 5 June 1994.
  • Uns. Kirkus Reviews 15 December 1992.
  • Uns. New York Times Book Review  5 December 1993.
  • Uns.  Publisher’s Weekly 14 December 1992.
  • Uns. “Short and Sweet.” Newark Star-Ledger 4 April 1993.
  • Uns. “Van Gogh’s Room at Arles.” Atlanta Constitution 21 March 1993.
  • Uns., “Van Gogh’s Room at Arles,” New York Magazine 8 March 1993.
  • Uns. “Vangoogh’s [sic] Room at Arles.” Rainbo Electronic Reviews 1993.
  • Uns. “Volumes Bound to be of Interest.” Philadelphia Inquirer 12 December 1993.
  • Uns. “Worth getting and Giving.” Chicago Tribune 5 December 1993.
  • Weiner, Bernard.  “On the Brink of Breakdown.”   San Francisco Chronicle  7 March 1993.
  • Wolitzer, Meg.  “The Roaring Anger of Not being in Charge.”  New York Times Book Review 21 March 1993.

Mrs. Ted Bliss (1995).

  • Anderson, Roger K.  “A Pinch of Miami Spice.” Dallas Morning News 8 October 1995.
  • Bandler, Michael J.  “Blissandbluster: a woman breaks free of convention.”  Fort Worth Star Telegram 29 October 1995.
  • Brisick, William C.  “An author’s last testament speaks to all readers.”  The Register 12 November 1995.
  • Cryer, Dan.  “High Priest’s Legacy.” New York Newsday 21 August 1995.
  • Dirda, Michael. “Finding life (and laughs) after death in Miami.” Miami Herald 10 September 1995; syndicated as “The lessons of death.”  San Jose Mercury News 24 September 1995.
  • Goodman, Walter.  “Twilight of a Baleboosteh.”  New York Times Book Review 17 September 1995.
  • Hall, Barbara Hodge,  “Elkin’s final novel one of his most exceptional.” Anniston Star 15 October 1995.
  • Harkins, Susan Lynne.  “Elkin’s last novel is bravura performance.”  Orlando Sentinel 26 November 1995.
  • Held, James.  “A novel about an old woman who knows how to live.”  Philadelphia Inquirer  1 October 1995.
  • Herter, Philip.  “Playful to the End.” St. Petersburg Times 1 October 1995. 
  • Holoday, Barbara.  “Such Bliss.” Detroit Free Press 20 September 1995. 
  • Howard, Maureen.  “Sunset over Miami.” LA Times Book Review 3 September 1995; syndicated as “Elkin Ended Well.” Sarasota herald Tribune  24 September 1995 and  “Bliss a brilliant end to Elkin’s career.” Providence Journal Bulletin. 17 September 1995.
  • Kakutani, Michiko. “The Wild Life and Times of a Miami Widow.”  New York Times 8 September 1995.
  • Lawlor, William.  “A Widow endures while all falls away.”  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 27 August 1995.
  • Marx, Bill.  “Mrs. Ted Bliss”  Bookmarks: The Boston Phoenix Literary Section September 1995.
  • Mesic, Penelope.  “One great granny.”  Chicago Tribune 24 September 1995.
  • Milovsky, David.  Prairie Schooner, Winter 1995: 150-153.
  • Olson, Clarence E.  “Mrs. Ted Bliss’s Farewell.”  St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 3 September 1995.
  • Pritchard, William S.  “On the Beach.”  Boston Sunday Globe 3 September 1995.
  • Remick, David.  “Fleeing Bliss.” The New Yorker 25 September 1995.
  • Saltzman, Arthur M.  “Mrs. Ted Bliss.”  Review of Contemporary Fiction 16  (Spring 1996).
  • Shindler, Dorman.  “Elkin’s ‘Mrs. Ted Bliss’ a mix of fantasy, reality.” The Denver Post  24 September 1995. 
  • Warren, Tim, “Aging widow hangs tough in Elkin’s moving, funny, novel.” Houston Chronicle 17 December 1995.
  • Waters, Colin.  “A spiritually profound ‘Bliss.’”  Washington Times 10 September 1995.
  • Weiner, Bernard.  “A Woman’s Final Adventure.”  San Francisco Chronicle 15 October 1995.
  • Whaley, Charles. “Meet Mrs Bliss” Louisville Courier Journal 11 November 1995; syndicated as “Elkin’s last book in  ‘Bliss.”  Nashville Tennessean 10 December 1995.
  • Zacharia, Janine.  “Baleboosteh Blues.” The Jerusalem Report  25 January 1996.

Bibliographies of Elkin’s Work

Most books and articles on Elkin, including the several entries in encyclopedias or literature, both electronic and print, contain bibliographies. This list notes only separately-published bibliographies.

  • McCaffrey, Larry.  “Stanley Elkin: A Bibliography, 1957-1977.”  Bulletin of Bibliography 34 (April 1977): 73-76.
  • Nadel, Ira Bruce.  “Stanley Elkin, 1930-.”  In Jewish Writers of North America: A Guide to Information Sources. Detroit: Gale, 1981: 195-196.
  • Robins, William M.  “A Bibliography of Stanley Elkin.”  Critique 26 (Summer 1985): 169-184.
  • _______.  Stanley Elkin: A Comprehensive Bibliography.  Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2009.

Special Library Collections

  • The Olin Library, Washington University, St. Louis, houses two separate Elkin archives in the Special Collections.  Other collections containing correspondence from or to Elkin that were cited in Shouting Down the Silence:
  • The Albert and Naomi Lebowitz collection, Olin Library.
  • The Georges and Anne Borchardt collections, Columbia University.
  • The William H. Gass collection, Olin Library.
  • Sewanee University, Sewanee, TN, houses an extensive video archive of Elkin’s participation in Sewanee Writer’s Conferences during the 1990s.