Mrs. Ted Bliss

by Stanley Elkin

Book Overview

Published posthumously in 1995, Mrs. Ted Bliss tells the story of an eighty-two-year-old widow starting life anew after the death of her husband. As Dorothy Bliss learns to cope with the mundane... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786861045
• ISBN13: 9780786861040
• Release Date: September 1995
• Publisher: Hyperion Books
• Length: 291 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.7" x 9.8"

Customer Reviews

The Life of Mrs. Ted Bliss

Well at first I did catch on about the book when I first started reading it. The more I read the book the better if got to my understanding. It is a very good book. I could relate to some of the things that she was talking about. Mrs. Ted Bliss is a smart woman but does not quite realize that she is. It is just a great book. Thank you Stanley Elkin

Elkin's writing is gorgeous and his mind so imaginative!

I was saddended to learn that Stanley Elkin had passed on because his writing in Mrs. Ted Bliss so inspired me to write with more brio, more of a kind of "high" tone of humor, wit, compassion. I adored Mrs. Ted Bliss. It was such a funny idea, the elderly retiree hob-nobbing with drug lords; the feisty little old lady fighting stereotypical tendencies in herself. And, bottom line, the book is hilarious. I cannot recommend it more highly to one and all for a whole bundle of laughs. Mr. Elkin created a masterpiece, one I like to give to friends as a special gift.

Once Again, a Masterpiece by Elkin

One of the most distinct voices in (Jewish) American literature, Stanley Elkin, has done it again with Mrs. Ted Bliss. From the title to the final chapter, the reader is forced to examine his/her preceonceptions about age, retirement, sex and social roles, and other stereotypes. Mrs. Ted Bliss, a retired widow with no skills, gets caught in a web of intrigue that leads to the downfall of a drug lord when she sells her car. Mrs. Ted Bliss, however, is no Mrs. Pollifax, ready to karate-chop her way out of danger. Give it a read if you want to laugh out loud.

A Miami widow's quirky odyssey of the heart.

Mrs. Ted Bliss is a widowed woman in a polyester pant suit living her last years in a Miami Beach condominium. When a local drug kingpin buys her dead husband's car, it triggers a remarkable chain of events that brings Mrs. Bliss face-to-face with the premises of her life as a dutiful wife. The authenticity that Elkin brings to Mrs. Bliss' inner dialogue and his characters' speech was so humorous and touching that I frequently had to collar somebody so I could read them the passages out loud. If you like to find the extraordinary in "ordinary" lives, if you have an ear for language, please give yourself and treat and pick up this book.