William Maxwell 1908 - 2000

Continuing with the theme of influences...

'One winter morning shortly before daybreak three men loading gravel heard what sounded like a pistol shot...'

So begins William Maxwell's novel 'So Long, See You Tomorrow'. I was hooked on his writing from that moment onwards, particularly his way of ending paragraphs and chapters with the perfect sentence, often loaded with wisdom.

Take this section from Time Will Darken It.

'The search is never hopeless. There is no haystack so large that the needle in it cannot be found. But it takes time, it takes humility and a serious reason for searching."

I'd be happy to end a whole novel like this, not simply a chapter.

One more for luck.

'Death, about which so much mystery is made, is perhaps no mystery at all. But the history of one's parents has to be pieced together from fragments, their motives and character guessed at, and the truth about them remains deeply buried, like a boulder that projects one small surface above the level of a smooth lawn, and when you come to dig around it, proves to be too large ever to move, though each year's frost forces it up a little higher.'

There's a whole novel there.

His work also has a tremendous, gentle rhythm to it.

I've not read everything he wrote. It isn't easy to get hold of, but I recommend all of the following:

So Long, See You Tomorrow
Time Will Darken It
The Chateau
The Folded Leaf

and his short story collection

All the Days and Nights

He edited Salinger and Cheever.

He was married for 55 years and when his wife died, in July 2000, he followed soon after. He used to tell her stories before switching out the light and he called her 'his one and only'.