So Long, See You Tomorrow

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Overview

In this magically evocative novel, William Maxwell explores the enigmatic gravity of the past, which compels us to keep explaining it even as it makes liars out of us every time we try. On a winter morning in the 1920s, a shot rings out on a farm in rural Illinois. A man named Lloyd Wilson has been killed. And the tenuous friendship between two lonely teenagers—one privileged yet neglected, the other a troubled farm boy—has been shattered.Fifty years later, one of those boys—now a grown man—tries to reconstruct ...

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More About This Book

Overview

In this magically evocative novel, William Maxwell explores the enigmatic gravity of the past, which compels us to keep explaining it even as it makes liars out of us every time we try. On a winter morning in the 1920s, a shot rings out on a farm in rural Illinois. A man named Lloyd Wilson has been killed. And the tenuous friendship between two lonely teenagers—one privileged yet neglected, the other a troubled farm boy—has been shattered.Fifty years later, one of those boys—now a grown man—tries to reconstruct the events that led up to the murder. In doing so, he is inevitably drawn back to his lost friend Cletus, who has the misfortune of being the son of Wilson's killer and who in the months before witnessed things that Maxwell's narrator can only guess at. Out of memory and imagination, the surmises of children and the destructive passions of their parents, Maxwell creates a luminous American classic of youth and loss.

Winner of the 1982 National Book Award

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Editorial Reviews

From Barnes & Noble
A book that probably very few of you have read: William Maxwell's So Long, See You tomorrow, a diamond-hard, 140-page masterpiece (watch for next month's Writer's Writers column, which will be about William Maxwell in general and that book in particular). The book was first published in the late 1970s in The New Yorker, when I was just a dumb teenager not yet reading The New Yorker, and it was published as a book in 1980 and reissued in paperback last year. If you are reading it on an airplane or in a restaurant and you see someone else reading it, this would be both a large coincidence and a sign that probably it would be okay to marry that person.

—Mark Winegardner

Library Journal
This superb series of interviews and readings has expanded to include longer selections from its authors, in this case a short, autobiographical novel that won Maxwell the American Book Award in 1980. Set in Lincoln, Illinois, which Maxwell calls "my imagination's home," the story is modeled after incidents in Maxwell's youth: his mother's death when he was ten; his father's remarriage and their move to a new house; and Maxwell's relationship to a killer's son. Maxwell's narration, like his prose, is devoid of all theatrical effect: it is a quietly told story by a thoughtful man with something on his mind and in his heart. He is nevertheless traversing fairly familiar fictional ground. What is extraordinary about this program is his talk with Kay Bonetti, in which Maxwell, 87 at the time of this recording, discusses his life and work with a reflective honesty that is unmatched by any other author in the series. Maxwell's career also encompasses four decades as fiction editor of The New Yorker, and questions about the authors with whom he worked, such as John Cheever and J.D. Salinger, are met with the same directness and lucidity that characterize his prose. Recommended.Peter Josyph, New York
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780679767206
  • Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 1/28/1996
  • Series: Vintage International Series
  • Pages: 144
  • Sales rank: 85,157
  • Product dimensions: 5.14 (w) x 8.01 (h) x 0.39 (d)

Read an Excerpt

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.
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Customer Reviews

Average Rating 4
( 8 )
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Sort by: Showing all of 8 Customer Reviews

  • Anonymous

    Posted May 18, 2006

    Good Read

    So Long, See You Tomorrow was an okay book. It recreated the happenings before the murder very nicely. Although, it was kind of confusing I would recomend it to people who like historical fiction.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 18, 2006

    Good book

    I liked this story. It was interesting and enjoyable.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 5, 2004

    So Long, See You Tomorrow

    The narrator displays many emotions throughout the book. It is a murder mystery yet at the same time the storyline deplicts a past that the narrator cannot let go of. The book shows how a man cannot let go of his mothers absence in his life and how he finds it difficult to make friends. The twist of the book brings it to life, and the memories of his childhood show the truths of how a child visualizes life and their parents.

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  • Anonymous

    Posted May 6, 2004

    A Good Book

    So Long See You Tomorrow is a weird book, it talks about different things. It mostly talks about his mother dying and how he hates his step-mother. It gets really confusing towards the end of the book, the auther who wrote this book does not have anything organized so you get lost in the book, but other than that I think its pretty good.

    0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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    Posted April 11, 2009

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    Posted November 3, 2011

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    Posted October 27, 2008

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  • Anonymous

    Posted January 19, 2009

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