‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ is the second William Maxwell novel that I have read, last year I read ‘They Came like Swallows’ – a beautifully poignant book which Maxwell wrote in the 1930’s. This novel, written when the author was in his seventies comes from the same place of raw grief. However, this novel is a work of far greater genius than that earlier novel (exquisite and well worth reading though it is). ‘So Long, see you Tomorrow’ is a novel written with the wisdom of age and the knowledge that those early griefs never do leave us.
Some novels are difficult to write about adequately. This is one such, it’s a book I am in danger of buying for everyone I know who reads. So my thoughts about this book might be brief – because the story is simple – but what the author achieves with this astonishing novel is hard to put into words. It is a book which will almost certainly feature on my books of the year list.
“One winter morning shortly before daybreak, three men loading gravel there heard what sounded like a pistol shot. Or, they agreed, it could have been a car backfiring. Within a few seconds it had grown light. No one came to the pit through the field that lay alongside it, and they didn’t see anyone walking on the road. The sound was not a car backfiring; a tenant farmer named Lloyd Wilson had just been shot and killed, and what they heard was the gun that killed him.”
The setting is Lincoln, Illinois in the 1920’s– just as in They Came like Swallows, the place where Maxwell grew up. There is definitely an autobiographical feeling to both novels, which draw heavily on the author’s own experience of losing his mother during the flu epidemic of 1918/9. The novel concerns a murder, a suicide, an adulterous relationship, and the loneliness of two boys who come together briefly in the midst of a series of terrible events. When the narrator of So Long, See You Tomorrow, meets Cletus Smith, he has already suffered the greatest loss of his young life – the death of his mother. His father, is distant, marrying again, a gentle younger woman who tries in time to build bridges between her step sons and their father. Cletus is lonely, watching the destruction of his parents’ marriage from the side-lines, but things are about to take a violent, shocking turn. (This is no spoiler – we know all that happens within four or five pages).
“My father represented authority, which meant – to me – that he could not also represent understanding. And because there was an element of cruelty in my older brother’s teasing (as, of course, there is in all teasing) I didn’t trust him, though I perfectly well could have, about larger matters. Anyway, I didn’t tell Cletus about my shipwreck, as we sat looking down on the whole neighbourhood, and he didn’t tell me about his. When the look of the sky informed us that it was getting along toward suppertime, we climbed down and said ‘So long’ and ‘See you tomorrow,’ and went our separate ways in the dusk. And one evening this casual parting turned out to be for the last time. We were separated by that pistol shot.”
After that shot which rang out – and the events which followed, the narrator and Cletus don’t meet again – although the narrator is haunted by a glimpse of Cletus eighteen months later – in the corridor of a large Chicago high school where coincidently events have taken both boys. For the rest of his life that damaged young boy carried with him into old age the feeling that he failed Cletus by not continuing their friendship in the wake of the murder. Now more than fifty years after those events, the narrator looks back on the story of Cletus’ father Clarence and his former best friend Lloyd Wilson, while remembering his own difficult adolescence.
In the rural landscape of Illinois two neighbouring tenant farmer, Lloyd Wilson and Clarence Smith became great friends. Lending each other a hand whenever it was needed, they spent years in and out of each other’s homes. In time jealously, adultery and ultimately betrayal took the place of friendship, and one man lies dead in his barn.
The last section of the novel is so moving, tenderly written – (and don’t roll your eyes) told from the point of view of a loyal farm dog left behind in all the fracas. It shouldn’t work – but oh my – it completely did for me.
Aware that I haven’t done this book anything like the justice it deserves, all I can say to those of you who haven’t already read it – is get a copy of this wonderful novel and read it
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Great review Ali! I really must read Maxwell – his work gets raved about in so many places!
Yes I have seen people raving about Maxwell – which made me buy the books. I loved They Came like Swallows which I was advised to read first and I’m glad I did, but this is so much more.
A lovely review of a very tender and poignant novel. I read it not so long ago over the Christmas holidays when I tend to take a break from writing about books. Maxwell’s prose is exquisite isn’t it?
Have you ever read Testing the Current by William McPherson? It’s in the same territory as these Maxwell novels, quiet stories, beautifully written.
I don’t know William McPherson at all , thanks for the recommendation.
I’d never heard of him either until NYRB Classics reissued Testing a few years ago. There’s a review at mine if you’re interested. (I think you would love the book, not that I’m trying to sell you another one within the space of a few days!)
I need so little encouragement- I will look it up later. 😊
This is new to me, so thank you. You make the case for adding it to my toppling tbr pile. Caroline
I hope you do, I ‘m sure that you won’t regret it 😊and it’s only little.
Now I have read it! I enjoyed the melancholy, gentle style and the close look at rather un-extraordinary but awful events. The burden that haunts Maxwell is convincing. It feels like a true story.
I enjoyed the rather unorthodox structure, even the dog, who had a perspective after all, and a sad end.
Thanks for the recommendation and encouragement to read.
Caroline
Yay so glad you enjoyed it 😊
Excellent review, Ali. I love this book. Maxwell’s writing is so elegantly pared back. You may know that he was an editor with the New Yorker for many years, nurturing writers such as J D Salinger, Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov and the like, all of whom respected and loved him apparently. I think that careful restraint of a fine editor shows in his writing.
I think his being an editor must show in his writing, as you say it is so perfectly pared back. Good to hear he was so well loved.
This sounds like a gem. I’ve not heard of Maxwell but am now adding to my wishlist
Glad to hear it, I really hope you love him too.
He’s long been on my Wish List at Amazon, and I must get round to reading him. Great review.
Thank you, I hope you will read Maxwell soon, I ‘m sure you won’t be disappointed.
This sounds amazing and a very fine work. I haven’t heard of him knowingly, although I must have read your review of his last one …
It was only other people’s reviews that alerted me to him.
Oh how spooky… just today I posted a review I found difficult being objective quoting ‘I don’t “review” books because I’m an emotional reader, not a critical one’
Some books just grab you that way & (as I also found out today) apparently some readers of the reviews often appreciate the emotional response just as much as the polished critique, if not more so … for what it’s worth while the premise wouldn’t necessarily have me reaching for this book, your response & review of Maxwell’s writing does!
Well that’s good, because of course now I want everyone to read it. 😊
I do think really good books do just inspire an emotional response.
I love his beautiful writing in this book too, but was outraged at the terrible injustice suffered by the dog! So heartbreaking.. .
I know the section with the dog was heartbreaking. The writing is extraordinarily good. I will be seeking out more by him.
That is a very persuasive review, Ali. I have never read any Maxwell and I think I must
I think you must too. 😉
Thank you for another reminder that I really must read Maxwell.
Oh good, I hope you do. Would love to know what you make of him.
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This sounds wonderful. I’ve never read Maxwell–partly because my husband discourages me. (He hates Maxwell.) Everybody says these are classics and you’ve convinced me I must try him.
Oh yes please do. I’m intrigued as to why your husband hates Maxwell? Just goes to show how we can’t all like the same thing.
Thank you for this review. I’ve been meaning to read Maxwell for a while, because of the Sylvia Townsend Warner connection; I’m now persuaded that I want to start here.
I love the first paragraph that you quote — so clearly written, and yet it introduces several ideas only to revise them shortly afterwards, and encompasses several points of view.
Well I didn’t realise there was a connection. No thank you Google I see he was her editor and long time correspondent- how interesting. I hope you enjoy reading William Maxwell.
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