The Living End

Stanley Elkin's short comic novel "The Living End" is a nifty, nasty blast against the Judeo-Christian tradition. By hilariously excoriating the conventional vision of the afterlife, Elkin (1930-1995) uses his fandangoing language to accuse God of cultivating an imagination that's sadistic rather than sublime. Elkin's satiric misanthropy is worthy of Twain, though it falls short of Swift. The action in "The Living End" jumps from Heaven to Hell and back, its sardonic metaphysics revolving around the sufferings of a Job-like figure, Ellerbee, a decent man who while alive makes a few small mistakes, such as keeping his liquor store open on the Sabbath. - Bill Marx on ArtsFuse.org.