The Rabbi of Lud » (1ST DALKEY)

Stanley Elkin (1930–1995) was an award-winning author of novels, short stories, and essays. Born in the Bronx, Elkin received his BA and PhD from the University of Illinois and in 1960 became a professor of English at Washington University in St. Louis where he taught until his death. His critically acclaimed works include the National Book Critics Circle Award–winners George Mills (1982) and Mrs. Ted Bliss (1995), as well as the National Book Award finalists The Dick Gibson Show (1972), Searches and Seizures (1974), and The MacGuffin (1991). His book of novellas, Van Gogh’s Room at Arles, was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award.

Rabbi Jerry Goldkern resides in Lud, New Jersey, where Jews from the surrounding states come to bury their dead. Distressed by the lack of living children in the area, the Rabbi's daughter Connie creates a scandal that livens up the town of Lud when she testifies to meeting the Virgin Mary.
Widely considered to be one of the most important authors of the contemporary era, Stanley Elkin is a two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and has been nominated for the National Book Award on three occasions. He is the author of over a dozen novels and a short story collection, including The Magic Kingdom, The Franchiser, and George Mills. Dalkey Archive Press began a project in 1998 to restore to print all of Elkin's work.

Publishers Weekly

Elkin ``defies death with a glistening tale that is laugh-out-loud hilarious as well as poignant,'' praised PW . He introduces a ``voluble, acerbically witty and deliciously irreverent'' rabbi whose business is officiating at the funerals of people he has never met in the necropolis of Lud, N.J. (October)