A Bad Man refines the traditional Elkin method of picaresque narration, in which the organizing principle is an episodic rendering of the character's life, beginning with his trip to the prison and recovering through memory or anecdote events that led Feldman to his illegal basement store. Like J. P. Donleavy in The Ginger Man, Elkin focuses our attention, through limited omniscient narration melding occasionally into first person central, on an antihero whose defiance of cultural norms we are to admire, but whose indifference to the needs and feelings of other human beings are repugnant.

Feldman denies his son, abuses his wife, takes advantage of friendships, ruins a partner's promising career, and even fires a sick saleslady for a trivial offense. Through episodic narration, internal monologue, and humor, Elkin compels us to contemplate the ideas and obsessions of a man whom we would not, in real life, tolerate &mdash...