Jonathan Coe’s Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson—A Dialogue with Biography

This article examines Jonathan Coe’s biography of British experimental writerB. S. Johnson (1933–1973), Like a Fiery Elephant, which may be called a postbiography. The essay explores the ways in which ways Coe simultaneously deconstructs some of the conventions of literary biography and echoes innovative devices developed by Johnson in his novels.