Mrs. Ted Bliss (American Literature (Dalkey Archive)) [Paperback]

Stanley Elkin (Author), Chirs Lehmann (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002 | Series: American Literature (Dalkey Archive)

Published posthumously in 1995, Mrs. Ted Bliss tells the story of an eighty-two-year-old widow starting life anew after the death of her husband. As Dorothy Bliss learns to cope with the mundane rituals of life in a Florida retirement community, she inadvertently becomes involved with a drug kingpin trying to use her as a front for his operations. Combining a comic plot with a deep concern for character, Elkin ends his career with a vivid portrait of a woman overcoming loss, a woman who is both recognizable and as unique as Elkin's other famous characters.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Mrs. Ted Bliss has lived on her own in a Miami condominium complex since the death of her husband, a Chicago butcher, and in learning to live in the modern world, she's made some interesting friends. Mrs. Ted is stepping out with more than one shady gentleman who is overly interested in the late Mr. Ted's Buick LeSabre. Hilarious, touching, and complex, this novel -- Elkin's last before his death in 1995 -- is the winner of the 1995 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Elkin's last novel, about a Jewish widow's waning years in a Miami condo, won the NBCC fiction prize.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 294 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press; 1 edition (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564783227
• ISBN-13: 978-1564783226
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,133,973 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More 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 & Seizures (1974), and The MacGuffin (1991). His book of novellas, Van Gogh's Room at Arles, was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elkin's writing is gorgeous and his mind so imaginative!, November 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Mrs. Ted Bliss (Paperback)

I was saddended to learn that Stanley Elkin had passed on because his writing in Mrs. Ted Bliss so inspired me to write with more brio, more of a kind of "high" tone of humor, wit, compassion. I adored Mrs. Ted Bliss. It was such a funny idea, the elderly retiree hob-nobbing with drug lords; the feisty little old lady fighting stereotypical tendencies in herself. And, bottom line, the book is hilarious. I cannot recommend it more highly to one and all for a whole bundle of laughs. Mr. Elkin created a masterpiece, one I like to give to friends as a special gift.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful language, ugly plot, June 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mrs. Ted Bliss (Paperback)

Mr. Elkin has a wonderful style, with phrases that you reread and say out loud to yourself, that you remember when you put the book down. But that's about all you remember, because the plot and the characters leave much to be desired. I think Elkin put a little too much into forming the most perfect, most beautiful sentences, and not enough into the actual story. I never cared about what happened to Dorothy, or anyone else in her mundane existance. Literature is not literature if it doesn't move you, and Mrs. Ted Bliss most definetly failed in that regard.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Miami widow's quirky odyssey of the heart., June 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Mrs. Ted Bliss (Paperback)

Mrs. Ted Bliss is a widowed woman in a polyester pant suit living her last years in a Miami Beach condominium. When a local drug kingpin buys her dead husband's car, it triggers a remarkable chain of events that brings Mrs. Bliss face-to-face with the premises of her life as a dutiful wife. The authenticity that Elkin brings to Mrs. Bliss' inner dialogue and his characters' speech was so humorous and touching that I frequently had to collar somebody so I could read them the passages out loud. If you like to find the extraordinary in "ordinary" lives, if you have an ear for language, please give yourself and treat and pick up this book.