[2] He did both his undergraduate and graduate work at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, receiving a bachelor's degree in English in 1952 and a Ph.D. in 1961 for his dissertation on William Faulkner.

[3] During his career, Elkin published ten novels, two volumes of novellas, two books of short stories, a collection of essays, and one (unproduced) screenplay.

In a review of George Mills, Ralph B. Sipper wrote, "Elkin's trademark is to tightrope his way from comedy to tragedy with hardly a slip."

Although living in the Midwest, Elkin spent his childhood and teenage summers in a bungalow colony called West Oakland,[4] on the Ramapo River in northern New Jersey not far from Mahwah, the home of Joyce Kilmer.

This was a refuge for a close-knit group of several score families, mostly Jewish, from the summer heat of New York City and urban New Jersey.

[4] Elkin won the National Book Critics Circle Award on two occasions: for George Mills in 1982 and for Mrs. Ted Bliss, his last novel, in 1995.