Customer Reviews

The Franchiser

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At one point in the Franchiser, the book's central character, Ben Flesh, says with a whimpering exhale: I want my remission back. Ben's flesh, literally, and Ben's small empire of franchises face imminent death in a 1970s America of rolling blackouts and gas shortages. Ben has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis; his franchising fund, controlled by his godcousins, has been diagnosed sub-performing and unfit.

The back-story of Ben's franchise building ability is laid out in a wonderful early chapter, but what draws us to Elkin, and why we'll read anything he wrote is the language-writing that is grabbed by the jugular and dragged like prey across the page. Like all his characters, those in The Franchiser speak in a colorful and idiosyncratic vernacular, and in Ben's case the dogmatisms of business school and manias of endless entrepreneurship. If you are a Midwesterner, especially one from Kansas City, you will smile at Flesh's analysis á la Roland Barthes of the Crown Center Mall. Read Elkin's Franchiser: laugh, cry, and marvel at it all.

I read an interview with Stanley Elkin where he mentioned William Gass as one of the writers he admired and as a result I went and bought a copy of the "The Tunnel" completely forgetting Stanley Elkin. Luckily I retraced my steps and have discovered a new slippery slope to slide down. It is funny in a dark way and a light way and is written at many different levels, but Elkin digs deep into the American way of life and the pursuit of happiness and writes beautiful prose. I read a lot of books at one time because I have a wide variety of tastes and with Kindle keeping track for me can peruse my reading list like a kid in the candy store. But once in a while there is that book that just grabs my attention and I drop everything else, not being able to put it down. I look forward to no doubt a few more thousand miles in the Franchiser's Cadillac and enjoying every minute of the ride.

You won't come acoss a more side-splittingly funny portrait of America in 1976 than what Elkin gives us here. I don't know which is the more: the humor in America that is depressing or the depression that is humorous; in any event, the book is a must for anyone who likes his or her humor bitersweet, his or her prose lush, and his or her mind to be stimulated and entertained!

I quit halfway through this book. I felt like I was being held captive (not captivated) by the author and tortured. If you like stream of consciousness, this book may be more to your taste.

I read this novel back when it was first published, and loved it. Over the years I lost the hardback. I'm glad to see that it is now available on Kindle, so I can read it again.