The Franchiser: A Novel (American Literature Series)
“The Franchiserhas 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)“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)“Crowded with cunning shifts of meaning and extravagant deployments of wit.” (The Nation)“The Franchiseris a fine portrait of America today with insights that are humorous, significant, and poignantly real.” (Best Sellers)“A frenzied parable, rather as though the Wandering Jew and Willy Loman had gotten together on a vaudeville act.” (Saturday Review)“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)“The prevailing dialect ofThe Franchiseris 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)