Stanley Elkin / franco-american

[Dave Monroe]

--- mikebailey at speakeasy.net wrote:

> malignd recommended:
> >
> > <<I believe it was Stanley Elkin ...>>
> >
> > And any of you on this list who haven't read
> > Mr. Elkin are advised to do so.... 
> 
> seconded...good writer...

The MacGuffin

As he's chauffeured about in his official limousine,
aging City Commissioner of Streets Bobbo Druff comes
to a frightening realization: he has lost force, the
world has started to condescend to him. His once
fear-inspiring figure has become everyone's "little
old lady."

In retaliation, Druff constructs a paranoid plot—his
"MacGuffin"—in which (he believes) everyone is out to
get him. With unabashed enthusiasm Druff starts an
illicit affair (in order to incriminate himself),
instigates fights with his employees, invents lies for
his family—in short, does everything in his power to
create a world in which he is placed safely and firmly
at the scandalous center.

One of Elkin's greatest comic figures, Druff's
self-conscious madness is surprisingly smart and
hilariously inventive. Few characters in modern
literature show such immense creativity and courage in
the face of such a hopeless dilemma—the very
slipperiness of existence itself.

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/dalkey/backlist/elkin.html#macguffin

Stanley Elkin

http://www.centerforbookculture.org/dalkey/backlist/elkin.html

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