The MacGuffin (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Stanley Elkin
- First Published: 1991
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: The 1990’s
- Setting: An unnamed mid-sized city near St. Louis
- Principal Characters: Robert (Bob, Bobbo) Druff, Rose Helen, Mikey, Dick, Margaret Glorio, Su’ad al-Najif, The MacGuffin
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction
- Subjects: Parents and children, Murder or homicide, Twentieth century, Midwest, Adultery, Fantasy, Imagination, Mysteries, Popular culture, Terrorism or terrorists, Espionage or spies, 1990’s, Diseases
- Locales: Midwest (U.S.)
Arthur Miller’s archetypal twentieth century American tragic hero, Willy Loman, leads as if inevitably to the inarticulate working-class characters of Raymond Carver’s minimalist short stories. By a more circuitous route, Willy also leads to the sprawling, maximalist novels of one of contemporary American fiction’s most undeservedly under-read writers, Stanley Elkin. Brilliant as Carver’s highly regarded fiction is, it comes to the reader in the recognizable and readily assimilated form of Hemingway-like reticence. Elkin’s fiction is altogether different—demanding not...
[The entire page is 2209 words long]
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