SOURCE: "Sunset Over Miami," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, September 3, 1995, pp. 1, 8.

[Howard is American novelist, essayist, critic, and autobiographer whose works include the novels Expensive Habits (1986) and Natural History (1992). In the following highly positive review of Mrs. Ted Bliss, she compares Elkin to Mark Twain and Herman Melville, describing him as "an American writer of the first rank."]

An excerpt from The Making of Ashenden

"Look here," Ashenden said, "I'm a man and you're a bear," and it was precisely as he had addressed those wives of his hosts and fellow guests who had made overtures to him, exactly as he might put off all those girls whose station in life, inferior to his own, made them ineligible. There was reproof in his declaration, yet also an acknowledgment that he was flattered, and even, to soften his rejection, a touch of gallant regret. He turned as he...