Product Description
On an Illinois farm in the 1920s, a man is murdered, and in the same moment the tenous friendship between two lonely boys comes to an end. In telling their interconnected stories, American Book Award winner William delivers a masterfully restrained and magically evocative meditation on the past. "A small, perfect novel."--Washington Post Book World.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.5 based on 53 reviews)

Good story, but focus isn't on its strongest material

In rural America in the 1920's, a love triangle leads to a brutal murder that destroys two entire families. At a crucial moment in the story, the narrator shows how he failed to reach out to a stricken friend when it might have mattered, and to assuage his guilt, he writes this novel, which is his re-creation of the story behind the story.

The nameless first person narrator recounts his own family's sense of loss and the permanent alienation that possessed him when his mother died of pneumonia during the influenza epidemic of 1918. Meanwhile, his friend Cletus' father, Clarence Smith, fears he is losing his wife to his best friend and neighbor, Lloyd Wilson, endangering their friendship, their marriages, and eventually their lives.

The opening pages seem reminiscent of Faulkner in their power and realism. Certainly Maxwell is much easier reading, too. But once the author got past the setup and began recounting the story of the affair, he lost some of the immediacy and veracity that gave the story its punch. Many pages are devoted to Clarence's actions, but little space is given to what Lloyd, or Fern (the femme fatale of this homey group) are actually thinking and feeling. Didn't anyone see this denouement coming? Wasn't there anything that could have been done about it? And while we follow Cletus through his days, we never really get inside his head. But perhaps the biggest problem is that Maxwell doesn't entirely succeed in synthesizing the two stories into one. The narrator's autobiographical story should tie into the Smith's story on a more dramatic level, and Maxwell doesn't quite make that connection. Indeed, the main thrust of the novel is that these two boys didn't connect, that the narrator didn't try to show his sympathy with the young man who'd been dealt such a raw deal by life. But the immensity of the tragedies described herein dwarf any such consideration, so that the author's construction seems weak and pointless by comparison. In sum, Maxwell has three stories here, and in tying them together, ultimately elects to focus on the wrong one. Even so, there's enough good material in this short novel to merit a modest recommendation: three and a half stars.
September 11, 2008

"making amends" to a childhood friend

This brief story, set in the 1920s in central Illinois, is the fictional memoir of a man trying to make amends for his behavior towards a childhood friend named Cletus Smith fifty years after the fact. Cletus' father, Clarence, was the suspect in the murder of a tenant farmer in a small town where the boys lived during their teens. He begins with details of his childhood; the series of tragedies that struck his family, especially the death of his mother during the flu epidemic of 1918. He was only ten years old. Three years later, his father remarries and moves the family to Illinois, which is where he meets and befriends Cletus. The memoirist provides an overview of the facts of the crime. He then reveals his actions towards Cletus during an unexpected encounter in high school, this being the thing for which he must make amends. Based on what actually transpired, it seems like he's being a little hard on himself. From that point to the final chapter, he reconstructs the events surrounding the murder in detail, especially the relationship between Lloyd Wilson, his neighbor and suspected killer, Clarence Smith, and Smith's wife. In the final chapter, he reminisces about return trips to his hometown, usually taken to attend a funeral, and his feelings of guilt about his treatment of Cletus.

So Long, See You Tomorrow, unique, believable and well-written, is similar to (but better than) Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. Also good: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

May 01, 2008

A perfect small novel

It would be wrong to use a lot of words to praise this book. There isn't a single unnecessary sentence between its covers.

My only caveat? If The Kite Runner is your idea of a great novel, you might want to skip this one.
February 18, 2008

Ouch!

Like another reviewer that gave the same rating, I believe that this novel does start out with a bang. After we learn about the shooting at the beginning of the novel, the story drops off though. This book is partly fiction, and partly memoir, so surely there must be something interesting about it?! There is hardly any dialogue, and the rest of the novel just seems to drag as any action is few and far between.

Granted, i know that this is partly a memoir, but i felt it was strange when the author would tell about memories he had, only to explain shortly after that they are completely wrong because of court records or newspaper clippings.

Another thing about the novel that i didn't like was how the author phrased his sentences. I found myself reading, and re-reading little sections of the book because he either worded the phrase ambiguously or it just sounded very strange. At first i thought that Maxwell must have been a new author, or perhaps if he wasn't then it may have been one of his first novels, but that wasn't the case. Instead, i was shocked to find out that Maxwell was actually a well known innovator in fiction; even working for a magazine as an editor in fiction for 40 years.

One last thing that influenced my decision was the main character/narrator's disposition. I could not identify with him at all, no matter how hard i tried. I could not relate to him, his circumstances, even his personality. He seems weak, unable or unwilling to change anything even for his own good, and is so passive that i cringed every time he was describing another boring detail about something that didn't really advance the plot.

I would give this novel one star, but its potential saved it from being a complete and utter failure.
January 16, 2008

Reconstructing a lost world

William Maxwell, in So Long, See You Tomorrow, performs one of the prime directives of literature, reconstructing a lost world. And Maxwell is patient and rigorous. We get the feeling, when reading this novel, that Maxwell is writing his work more to assuage his sense of loss than to inform or entertain us. This gives this novel almost the feel of a diary or memoir not meant for public review, or to be kept in a drawer until after the death of the novelist. And then pain of the loss is there, exposed, without mitigation; the young narrator walking with his hand around the hip of his father, who is pacing around the parlor in grief over his dead wife. The middle age narrator emerging from his psychiatrist's office overflowing with tears at the memory, secure in his knowledge that he can cry on a street in New York City with the greatest of anonymity. These are emotions men and women never surmount. This is raw stuff, but presented with the deft artistry, with the most patient care, and all in 135 pages.
June 28, 2007

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