So Long, See You Tomorrow: National Book Award Winner (Vintage International)

. . . but still we are haunted by it. By the memories of commonplace objects, events, and places from our youth. And by the recollection of minor failings of our youthful self - instances when, in retrospect, we wish we had acted differently (and acting differently truly was within the realm of possible behavior; it would not have required anything gallant or extraordinary on our part). That is the subject of William Maxwell's gem, SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW. The setting of the story is 1921 in Lincoln, Illinois. The book begins with the nameless narrator telling the story of events of his boyhood from the perspective, and with the imperfect memory, of fifty years hence. He first tells of the murder of a farmer, shot in the early morning while milking cows in his barn. He acknowledges that the event would not bulk so large in memory if "(1) the murderer hadn't been the father of somebody I knew, and (2) I hadn't later on done something I was ashamed of afterward." It is soon revealed who the murderer was - Clarence Smith, the farmer on the adjoining farm, with whose son the narrator had recently formed a boyhood friendship. But the second mystery - whatever the narrator had done that he was ashamed of - is not really made clear until the end of the book. Well before then, the story, now proceeding in the form of an omniscient third-person narrative, has been transformed into an imaginative reconstruction of how the close friendship of Lloyd Wilson and Clarence Smith was sundered by Wilson's obsession with Smith's wife Fern (which she welcomed), and how both families unraveled after their affair became known. William Maxwell was born in Lincoln, Illinois in 1908, and many of the biographical facts of the narrator (for example, his mother dying of influenza after giving birth to a younger brother and his family then moving from his childhood home) are facts of Maxwell's life. Certainly many of the plangent memories of boyhood contained in the novel are Maxwell's memories, and their telling evokes for me (and I am sure, mutatis mutandis, for others as well) memories of my own boyhood - utterly prosaic matters, but because they are the details from life at such an innocent time, full of promise of the life ahead, their irretrievable pastness is now keenly felt and missed. For the most part (the far greater part) the writing is superb. Spare and simple, wise and tender. I have two minor complaints. First, there are a few instances in which the book is over-written, where Maxwell gave too free rein to his authorial skills for what the story could bear. Second, I was somewhat irritated by the way he wrung a little extra (and therefore false) pathos from his story by telling snippets of it from the perspective of Trixie, an abandoned farmdog. Perfection in fiction is rare, but in SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW Maxwell approximates it.

Sometimes hard to keep track of the characters because the story meanders among them. The dog broke my heart. Interesting approach but not my favorite.

"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." (p. 31). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. The unnamed narrator is researching and recalling a friendship, a murder, and relationships among tenant farmer families in Lincoln, Illinois, during the 1920s. Fifty years after they occurred, he relies on memory, newspaper articles, and archives to piece together the story and events that have been haunting him and occupying his therapy sessions. The storyteller did not have friends as a child and adolescent and believes he betrayed his only true friend, Cletus. The tale is dark and explores youthful friendships as well as bullying, loneliness, and guilt. The narrator suffered several childhood tragedies, including the death of his mother, and his misfortunes occurred while he witnessed but did not fully comprehend the marriages and divorces of Cletus's parents and those of Lloyd and Marie Wilson, neighbors and fellow tenant farmers. He is convinced as an older adult that having a better understanding of the relationships will set his mind at ease. The author mentions more than once that childhood memories are often inaccurate, and children rarely have all aspects of a story in their mental databases. Also, the concept of home, figuratively and literally, and the loss of "home" and its accompanying security as a child, figure into the novel's essence. Thus, this national book award winner is the author's semi-autobiographical narration of a sad endeavor to recreate the past, make amends with his friend and settle his conscience. Maxwell forces us to consider times we have assumed we could see someone "tomorrow" and life interfered.

Rarely these days do I have the opportunity to read a book in a single sitting. But at a brief 135 pages, I was able to slip seamlessly into the world of this deeply emotional tale, which the Washington Post Book World accurately described as "a small, perfect novel." By page 9 I had already come across gems such as this, with the adult narrator musing back upon life in his family's home after the death of his mother in the 1918 Flu Pandemic: "Between the way things used to be and the way they were now was a void that couldn't be crossed. I had to find an explanation other than the real one, which was that we were no more immune to misfortune than anyone else, and the idea that kept recurring to me, perhaps because of that pacing the floor with my father, was that I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn't have gone through and couldn't get back to the place I hadn't meant to leave. Actually, it was the other way around: I hadn't gone anywhere and nothing had changed, so far as the roof over our heads was concerned, it was just that she was in the cemetery." The simple prose, completely absorbing, masterfully unveils parallel tales of two boys facing the enormity of life at a tender age. I was struck by the beauty of the pace and phrasing, and a narrative demonstrating that the written word can bring to life a collective of whispering voices, with no need for clanging alarm bells even when tragedy drips from the pages. Grammar police might gleefully note the technical errors in the preceding passage. But does your heart care, when the prose is so precise and the emotions so raw? No, in fact, it does not. In short, "So Long, See You Tomorrow" is simply the most beautiful piece of literature I have read in years.

A wonderful tale of how an adolescent deals with tragedy and its eaffect on his entire life. A Delightful read.

So Long, See you Tomorrow is a somewhat autobiographical novel. It is set in the author's hometown of Lincoln, Illinois and recounts a murder that occurred in 1921. The first part of the book tells us Maxwell's story. His mother died when he was young and his father remarried after a while. The family briefly moved into a newly built house and after that to Chicago. While the new house was being built, Maxwell kept visiting and playing there. He didn't have many reasons to spend time with his father and stepmother. They weren't exactly ignoring him but they lived a life of their own. While playing there, he became friends with Cletus Smith, a boy about his age that had reasons of his own for not spending time at home. The Smith family was a family of tenant farmers and we are introduced to the hard world they lived in. This is the world of rural Illinois with large dusty fields and long work days. Tenant farmers were considered second class citizens in this world. The Smith family befriends the Wilson family which moves into the neighboring farm. They are also a family of tenant farmers. In the book, Maxwell reconstructs Lloyd Wilson's murder by Clarence Smith (Cletus's father). The story is from the point of view of all the characters, including the family dog, who has some of the most emotional passages. It is a story of infidelity, betrayal, hopelessness. It isn't mentioned how Maxwell got so deep into the murder, since his research mostly involved his own personal memories and newspaper clippings (that he examined 50 years later) so we have to guess that much of it is fiction. Overall the story is a story of regret, the regret of not being there for his friend - he met Cletus a couple of years later while in high school in Chicago yet froze and didn't say anything. It also tries to analyze how traumatic childhood events can shape our adult lives. Maxwell tried to seek help later in life for dealing with the childhood death of his mother and he can only imagine how Cletus dealt with the events he went through.

Indulge me, this isn’t really a review (this book is absolutely fantastic, and it’s been in the world for 44 years) I’m going to tell you how I finally came to read it! This is how reading begets reading: I just finished Sarah Braunstein’s wonderful new novel “Bad Animals” and her protagonist (a librarian) refers to several real novels in the story, and one she particularly talks about in an intriguing way is “So Long, See You Tomorrow”, by William Maxwell (1980). So, I did a search on it and found a short video of Ann Patchett praising it as one of her favorites and noting that it’s quite short. So, I went to Amazon to order a used copy and discovered that I had already purchased it in 2018! (Thanks for that feature, Ammy!) I have no recollection of ordering it or why I did…but sure enough, there it was buried in a stack on my “To Be Read” nightstand! It’s a beautiful and poignant story, and Maxwell’s writing is utterly sublime. It’s a short novel: not one word too many nor too few. So, thank you Sarah B. and Ann P. for the nudge to finally rescue this gem from the stacks! It was as great as you said it would be!

A most compelling, though brief read. In 134 pages this stellar author spins a tale of growing up in rural Illinois. You can feel the heat and the cold, smell the rain, hear the noises and -- most of all -- feel the passions and consternations that boys experience while growing up. The characters in this delightful book run deep and Maxwell is a master at reminding us of how things once were. Maxwell does not waste words. His plot is pure and extremely well-focused. With just a few words he can set the reader off on evocative reveries or move the story along in a riveting fashion. This is a very good book and my first Maxwell. I look forward to reading others.

While told in a style with an historical many readers may never have known the story depicts innumerable social layers both from a time past but yet present.

Um romance breve e denso. Uma história contada com maestria que refina o nosso sentimento de comunhão humana.

Just brilliant. I like his simple unassuming style, which beguiles you with sudden unexpected insights into the way we process our feelings.

roman plein de nostalgie, écrit avec beaucoup de retenue, de poésie. L'histoire est tellement touchante et les personnages tres attachants.

Introspective and engaging story