Description
An orphaned bachelor, Ben Flesh, is taken in as an adult by the wildly eccentric Finsberg family—an adoption that feels both absurd and strangely binding. As Ben tries to navigate the demands of his new “place” in the world, he confronts the pressures of identity, belonging, and control, all while his body and circumstances refuse to cooperate on his schedule. With Stanley Elkin’s signature comic precision and lyrical, off-kilter American voice, the novel turns a seemingly social premise into a searching portrait of how people build meaning from constraint. Themes of family as performance, illness as an organizing force, and the uneasy bargain between individuality and community drive this darkly funny, deeply humane story.
Available Editions
paperback
Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Published Jan 1, 1976
341 pages
ISBN: 9780374158330
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Details
First Published
1976
Language
eng
Content Warnings
No content warnings identified.