Pieces of Soap

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.