The MacGuffin

From Publishers Weekly In this exuberant, offbeat novel, the wildly inventive Elkin ( George Mills ) unleashes a Hitchcockian MacGuffin (the narrative spirit) which takes over the ebbing life of Bobbo Druff, 58, the fairly honest but bribable street commissioner of a mid-size American city. Kafka-esque unseen enemies and their supposed spies, perhaps including Bobbo's newly acquired mistress, Meg Glorioso, may be trying to nail him for an unspecified crime linked somehow to the hit-and-run death of the Lebanese Moslem Shiite girlfriend of his son Mikey, a 30-year-old ninny. Bobbo winds up talking to the MacGuffin and eventually locks him out of his house. Elkin's imagination flags toward the end, but he has rewarded us with many comic turns, including the courtship of Bobbo and his future nagging wife under Hays Office rules: Bobbo has had to keep one foot on the floor at all times. First serial to Playboy. Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal Elkin here presents Commissioner of Streets Bobbo Druff, who, believing he is losing his power, orchestrates a series of useless and paranoid gestures to show that he is still top dog even though no one actually is challenging his authority. Though weird, the book was praised by LJ's reviewer for its "inspired, Joycean wordplay based on clich?s, shoptalk, and technical jargon" (LJ 2/1/91). Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. Fiction

in The Macguffin, Elkin Narrates With Accustomed Panache The Mysterious Events That Take Place In Something Under Forty Hours In The Life Of Bobby Druff, City Commissioner Of Streets, Aged Fifty-eight, Whose Ordered World Of Avenues And Roads Seems Suddenly A Rather More Complicated Maze Than He Remembers. Events, In Fact, Conspire Against Him, And His Wife, His Son, His New-found Lover, Even His Chauffeur, Appear To Be In On It. The Novel Combines A Sort Of Tough-talking, Laugh-out-loud Humor And That Odd, Amusing, Under-the-breath Revenge Of The Powerless With The Twists And Killer Thrill Rides Of A Plot To Rival Hitchcock's.

thomas R. Edwards

by Now It Shouldn't Be Necessary To Insist On The Importance Of [elkin's] Work: A List Of The American Novelists Who Have Mattered Over The Last Three Decades Would Be A Pitifully Short One If It Left Him Off. . . . He Is A Sublimely Funny Writer, An Inspired Stand-up Performer. . . . Druff Is Gifted, Like Other Elkin Protagonists, With Almost Miraculous Verbal Energies. . . . Elkin's Whole Representation Of The American Here And Now Is What Deserves Most Praise. . . . Elkin Clearly Has Just About All Of Us In Mind, And The Loving Generosity Of His Wonder Of Things As They Are, And As They Might Become, Is As Essentially American As Anything In Emerson Or Whitman. We Owe Him Thanks Again.
thomas R. Edwards, The New Republic, 5/20/91

A municipal employee sets out to unravel a murder{u2014}and save himself from the split personality that is pushing him to the brink At age fifty-eight, Robert Druff{u2019}s destructive alter ego has begun to take over his life. Frustrated with his job as Commissioner of the Streets and desperate to protect his aura of power, Druff injects himself into the middle of a conspiracy revolving around the death of his son{u2019}s girlfriend{u2014}and everyone, from his employees to his mistress, seems to be complicit in the plot. Deeply humorous and engaging, The MacGuffin is a striking exploration of obsession and the imaginative story of a man struggling against his own frailty to regain control of his life. This ebook features rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the author{u2019}s estate and from the Stanley Elkin archives at Washington University in St. Louis As he's chauffeured about in his official limousine, aging City commissioner of Streets Bobbo Druff comes to a frightening realization: he's lost force, the world has started to condescend to him. His once fear-inspiring figure has become everyone's "little old lady." In retaliation, Druff constructs a paranoid plot, his "MacGuffin" within which)he believes) everyone is out to get him. with unabashed enthusiasm Druff starts an illicit affair (in order to incriminate himself), instigates fights with his employees, invents lies for his family- in short, everythingything in his power to create a world in which he is placed safely and firmly at the scandalous center Bobbo Druff, a coca leaf-chewing street commissioner on the cusp of just-past-it, transforms his mid-life crisis into a paranoid web of mysterious events in a plot reminiscent of Hitchcock. Narrates forty hours in the life of Bobbo Druff, City Commissioner of Streets, aged fifty-eight whose ordered world becomes suddenly more complicated.