Mrs. Ted Bliss by Stanley Elkin

First published: 1995

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Comedy and bildungsroman

Time of plot: 1980’s

Locale: Miami

Principal characters

• Dorothy “Mrs. Ted” Bliss, an elderly Jewish woman
• Manny Tressler, a retired real-estate lawyer
• Alcibiades Chitral, a Venezuelan and a reputed drug dealer
• Tommy “Overeasy” Auveristas, a South American importer
• Hector Camerando and Jaime Guttierez, South American gentlemen of means
• Holmer Toibb, a counselor
• Milton “Junior” Yellin, a small-time hustler
• Maxine, Dorothy’s daughter
• Frank, Dorothy’s son
• Ellen Bliss, Dorothy’s daughter-in-law
• Louise Munez, a guard at Dorothy’s condominium

The Story:

Dorothy “Mrs. Ted” Bliss has lived in her Towers condominium ever since she and her late husband, Ted, first retired to Florida. Now in her early seventies and alone, she appears to her neighbors a pleasant but insubstantial woman, a sort of mascot to the Towers’ self-contained society.

Things are about to change in Dorothy’s life. As the older condo dwellers begin to die, émigrés from South America buy up their units. The original Jewish residents are older and comfortably fixed, but stuffy and set in their ways. The Latinos are younger, stylish, and proud, and are given to the grand gesture and the application of discreet gratuities. The men, especially, project a reined-in animal magnetism that stirs Dorothy’s imagination.

The Towers’ social committee, aware of the growing culture gap between these two groups, tries to counter it with what they call Good Neighbor Nights and international-theme parties. These efforts strike the South Americans as naïve and cheesy, but occasionally some of them attend. In the middle of a card game at one of these parties, Dorothy has her first encounter with two Latin gentlemen, Hector Camerando and Jaime Guttierez. Her life begins to take unexpected turns.

Some weeks after her husband’s death, Dorothy receives a bill from the city for almost two hundred dollars in taxes on Ted’s car. Dorothy does not drive and had always left business matters to her husband. She cannot understand owing money on a car that is already paid for. The two hundred dollars seem an enormous amount for what she thinks is nothing.

Alcibiades Chitral, a gallant Venezuelan, shows up at her front door asking if he can buy Ted’s 1978 Buick LeSabre, making her feel both rescued and flustered. The test drive has some of the undertones of a date to Dorothy, and when Alcibiades offers her five thousand dollars more than the market value for the car, she makes the deal.

Some weeks later, Alcibiades is brought to federal court on drug-dealing and money-laundering charges. Dorothy receives a subpoena to testify as a witness. Her Buick is somehow involved in Alcibiades’s activities. Dorothy’s children, Maxine and Frank, hire her a high-priced local attorney. Dorothy, aghast at the lawyer’s charges, fires her and prevails on retired real-estate lawyer Manny Tressler to represent her pro bono. He gets her through the court appearance but cannot help when drug enforcement officers lay claim to her basement parking space as well as the car. Still, in asking Manny to help, she had made a friend of him. He shows her how to use a checkbook and becomes a sort of counselor-on-life to her, countering her loneliness and ineptness at dealing with the outside world.

Attending a party in importer Tommy Auveristas’s penthouse apartment, Dorothy fidgets uncomfortably at the exotic food and conversation, but she perks up when Tommy treats her as the guest of honor. He offers to get the LeSabre and to have the police blocks removed from Dorothy’s basement parking space. Her children suspect the Latino men’s sudden attentions. They decide their mother needs to be under a local professional’s care. Persuading her to see a doctor is a lost cause. Finally, Manny suggests she might be willing to see a recreational therapeusist, whose specialty is treating bored old people who lack inner resources.

Holmer Toibb, the therapeusist, talks in medical analogies, which confuses Dorothy, and asks her to bring a list of her interests to her next appointment. Dorothy can only list playing cards, watching television, and seeing other people’s apartments. Holmer, however, is fascinated by her supposed connection with the notorious Tommy, also known as Overeasy.

Waiting at the bus stop after one of her appointments, Dorothy is surprised by Hector, who offers her a ride home. On the drive, Hector’s conversation half-insults, half-fascinates her. Appalled at his own words, Hector explains that he is a big player in jai alai and in greyhound racing, and that he can make her much money with his betting tips.

Hector is as good as his word. Dorothy bets cautiously and infrequently—mostly to avoid hurting Hector’s feelings—but she always wins. Her regard for South American gentlemen revived, she offers to visit Alcibiades in prison. She had always felt guilty about her part in his conviction. In due time a driver and limousine arrive to take her to the minimum-security prison on the edge of the Everglades. To Dorothy the prison resembles an upscale retreat center more than a penitentiary, but Alcibiades’s ninety-nine-year sentence still preys on her mind. They have a good visit, only slightly marred by Alcibiades’s rant against the “passivity” and naïveté of Jews when she asks why he had picked her as the stooge for his gambit.

The years go by. Dorothy’s children bring her to son Frank’s new home in Rhode Island for the Passover holidays. Frank’s new religiosity surprises her, and she is upset to learn that he had lost his previous job in Pittsburgh because of campus politics. Mostly, however, the visit reminds her of how far apart she is from her children’s daily lives, and vice versa.

Dorothy is now in her eighties. Manny has died. Before her trip to Rhode Island, she had returned to the therapeusis center. Holmer was gone, but to her shock, her new therapist is Milton “Junior” Yellin, her husband’s onetime business partner, who had changed vocations. Junior has conveniently forgotten that he once made a pass at her, but to Dorothy, it now merely adds to their shared history. They chat, and she finds that apparently, Junior is lonely, too. The two begin to spend time together, not as a couple but as friends. Dorothy had never had a friend before; family duties had always absorbed her. They go to jai alai matches together. Junior becomes intrigued with metal detectors, and they visit the beach, trolling for buried treasure.

Dorothy receives a letter from her daughter-in-law Ellen, who was married to Dorothy’s son Marvin. Ellen invites herself to a free Florida vacation in Dorothy’s apartment, but Dorothy is not keen on this idea; but she cannot say no to her daughter-in-law. They spend a week being elaborately polite to each other. One night, Dorothy invites Junior to dinner. He arrives drunk, sets off an incipient quarrel between the two women, and makes a mess in Dorothy’s bathroom, which upsets Dorothy the most. While Junior figures the mess is a minor faux pas, mended with an apology, house-proud Dorothy views it as a sort of ritual defilement. She throws away the guest towels that Junior used in a clean-up effort, convinced she has lost the last person to whom she was close.

A few days later, Dorothy receives a ship-to-shore telegram announcing Ellen and Junior’s marriage. The note had been sent from a Caribbean cruise ship; the couple is at sea on their honeymoon. Unfortunately, Hurricane Andrew is forming in the Atlantic near their ship. Dorothy sits watching the weather coverage, at first reluctant to believe a storm is directly on course to hit Miami. As it approaches, she refuses evacuation and then refuses boards to protect her condo’s windows. She wants to watch, she says, not sure at this point even why she is staying. When the hurricane hits, the electricity goes off and she thinks the building is deserted. As the winds lash the palm trees, she sees a light playing over her darkened living room. She opens the door and sees Louise, the guard, making her rounds. Louise offers to wait out the storm with her, and the two clasp hands and comfort each other.

Bibliography

Dougherty, David. “A Conversation with Stanley Elkin.” In The Muse upon My Shoulder: Discussions of the Creative Process, edited by Sylvia Skaggs McTague. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2004. Elkin is one of thirteen authors who discuss the process of writing, their inspiration to write, and their relationship to their readers in this collection of interviews.

Gass, William H. A Temple of Texts: Essays. New York: Knopf, 2006. Another writer obsessed with the workings of language offers an appreciation of Elkin’s writing in the essay “Open on the Sabbath.”

Goodman, Walter. “Twilight of a Baleboosteh.” The New York Times Book Review, September 17, 1995. A long, appreciative review of Mrs. Ted Bliss, with quotations and images that illustrate Elkin’s unique writing style.

Review of Contemporary Fiction 15, no. 2 (Summer, 1995). A special issue on Elkin that features contributions by Jerome Klinkowitz, Jerome Charyn, William H. Gass, and others. Includes an interview with Elkin in which he discusses the mystery in his fiction, the nature of plot, the essence of story, and his prose style.

Saltzman, Arthur M. “Mrs. Ted Bliss.” Review of Contemporary Fiction 16, no. 1 (Spring, 1996): 145. A short but incisive review focusing on the tensions between physical decline and the ego’s continuing vitality in Mrs. Ted Bliss.

Tristman, Richard. “Tragic Soliloquy, Stand-up Spiel.” New England Review 27, no. 4 (Fall, 2006): 36-40. Presents an analysis of the comic themes in Elkin’s writing, including a discussion of the characters, whom Tristman describes as being “drawn from the ordinary and even tawdry precincts of life.”