The Franchiser

by Stanley Elkin

Overview

The comic story of a man’s obsessive quest to build a fast food empire across America

For the better part of the 1970s, entrepreneur Ben Flesh could expand his business kingdom with the snap of his fingers. His fast food restaurants and electronics stores were all a part of his rapidly growing domain, remaking America one enterprise at a time. But when a series of personal and professional catastrophes strike unexpectedly, Ben finds himself on the verge of losing it all. Hailed as one of Stanley Elkin’s greatest works, The Franchiser is a biting satire of American consumerism and the story of one man’s all-consuming determination to create his lasting legacy, one business at a time. This ebook features rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author’s estate and from the Stanley Elkin archives at Washington University in St. Louis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781453204368
Publisher:	Open Road Media
Publication date:	10/26/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	342
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Stanley Elkin (1930–1995) was an award-winning author of novels, short stories, and essays. Born in the Bronx, Elkin received his BA and PhD from the University of Illinois and in 1960 became a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis where he taught until his death. His critically acclaimed works include the National Book Critics Circle Award–winners George Mills (1982) and Mrs. Ted Bliss (1995), as well as the National Book Award finalists The Dick Gibson Show (1972), Searches and Seizures (1974), and The MacGuffin (1991). His book of novellas, Van Gogh’s Room at Arles, was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award.

Stanley Elkin (1930–1995) was an award-winning author of novels, short stories, and essays. Born in the Bronx, Elkin received his BA and PhD from the University of Illinois and in 1960 became a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis where he taught until his death. His critically acclaimed works include the National Book Critics Circle Award–winners George Mills (1982) and Mrs. Ted Bliss (1995), as well as the National Book Award finalists The Dick Gibson Show (1972), Searches and Seizures (1974), and The MacGuffin (1991). His book of novellas, Van Gogh’s Room at Arles, was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award.

Editorial Reviews

The prevailing dialect of The Franchiser is Ben's own free-wheeling and exuberant Jewish-American—a tribal dialect in which Elkin can achieve effects worthy of S. J. Perelman and Wallace Markfield.”

The New York Times

Elkin takes an almost tactile pleasure in language, piling up words and phrases, reaching for every available joke and pun, until his sentences threaten to topple of their very weight.

Washington Post

A frenzied parable, rather as though the Wandering Jew and Willy Loman had gotten together on a vaudeville act.

Saturday Review

The Franchiser is a fine portrait of America today with insights that are humorous, significant, and poignantly real.”

Best Sellers

Crowded with cunning shifts of meaning and extravagant deployments of wit.

The Nation

In his principal character, Elkin represents the tragic panorama of an ailing America reaching out for stabilizers that aren't there; and the void beckons.

Booklist

The Franchiser has what few novels have any more: the ability to astonish and delight and a totally conscious hero who proves that the unaudited life is not worth living.”

Time