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Pieces of Soap (Hardcover)

Pieces of Soap by Stanley Elkin

Sale Date
ISBN
9781941040379
Page Count
416
Language
English
Dimensions
5½ x 8½
Imprint
Tin House
Stanley Elkin
With a wickedly witty touch, Elkin’s essays takes readers on a tour of American life in the 20th century.

Stanley Elkin was one of our great American writers. “A divine exploiter of the idiocies and intricacies of our language,” as John Irving put it, and nowhere is that more clear than this collection of essays, which find Elkin wresting hilarity and heartbreak from the most unlikely of sources.  
  • “Weird and spirited . . . the constant running through Elkin’s essays is the thrill they convey of a writer actually thinking—fresh—on the page.”
    Maureen Corrigan, NPR's Fresh Air
  • “Elkin's inimitable language is an exuberant blend of high allusions and colloquial registers, as bounce-and-pop and it is stop-and-go. His sentences can contain, on the same page, wonderful one-off puns (he refers to remainder shelves as "has bins") and a stretch of boisterous brilliance . . . . you'll leave satisfied and completely stuffed.”
    The New York Times Book Review
  • “Stanley Elkin is no ordinary genius of language, laughter, and the irresistible American idiom; he is an ingenious genius—an inimitable sword swallower, fire-eater, and three-ring circus of fecund wit and inexhaustible comic artistry.”
    Cynthia Ozick

Tin House

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