"Shouting Down the Silence" presents the first complete biography
of Stanley Elkin, a preeminent novelist who consistently won high
marks from critics but whose complexities of style seemed destined
to elude the popular acclaim he hoped to attain. From the
publication of his second novel, "A Bad Man, " in 1967 to his death
in 1995, Elkin was tormented by the desire for both material and
artistic success. Elkin's novels were taught in colleges and
universities, his fiction received high praise from critics and
reviewers (two of his novels won National Book Critics Circle
Awards), and his short stories were widely anthologized--and yet he
was unable to achieve renown beyond the avant-garde, or to escape
the stigma of being an "academic writer." He wanted to be Faulkner,
but he had trouble being Elkin. Drawing on personal interviews and
an intimate knowledge of Elkins's life and works, David C.
Dougherty captures Elkin's early life as the son of a charismatic,
intimidating, and remarkably successful Jewish immigrant from
Russia, as well as his later career at Washington University in St.
Louis. A frequent participant at the annual Bread Loaf Writers'
conference, he was the friend--and sometime antagonist--of other
important writers, particularly Saul Bellow, William Gass, Howard
Nemerov, and Robert Coover. Despite failed attempts to bridge the
gap from his academic post to wide popular success, Elkin continued
to write essays, stories, and novels that garnered unerring praise.
His was a classic dilemma of an intellectual aesthete loath to make
use of the common devices of popular appeal. The book details the
ambition, the success, the friction, and the foibles of a writer
who won fame, but not the fame he wanted.
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