Download or read book So Long See You Tomorrow written by William Maxwell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2011-04-27 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book They Came Like Swallows written by William Maxwell and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-02-15 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover William Maxwell’s classic, heart-breaking portrait of an ordinary American family struck by the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic 'A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic... Will melt many a reader to tears’ TIME Elizabeth Morison is an ordinary woman. Yet, to eight-year-old Bunny, his mother is the centre of his universe. To Robert, her elder son, she is someone he must protect against the dangers of the outside world. And to her husband, James, she is the foundation on which his family rests and life without her is unimaginable. As the dark winter of 1918 dawns and the shadow of Spanish flu starts to disturb day-to-day life, a moving portrait of Elizabeth takes shape, set against the lives and fate of the Morison family. ‘As you read They Came Like Swallows, you catch yourself from time to time being astonished at how tightly you're gripping the pages... There isn't a word that has dated. It could have been written yesterday, or tomorrow’ Nicholas Lezard, Guardian
Download or read book A William Maxwell Portrait written by Charles Baxter and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Writers who knew and were inspired by William Maxwell--revered as one of the 20th century's great American writers--offer intimate essays, most specifically written for this volume.
Download or read book F B Eyes written by William J. Maxwell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2016-12-06 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How FBI surveillance influenced African American writing Few institutions seem more opposed than African American literature and J. Edgar Hoover's white-bread Federal Bureau of Investigation. But behind the scenes the FBI's hostility to black protest was energized by fear of and respect for black writing. Drawing on nearly 14,000 pages of newly released FBI files, F.B. Eyes exposes the Bureau’s intimate policing of five decades of African American poems, plays, essays, and novels. Starting in 1919, year one of Harlem’s renaissance and Hoover’s career at the Bureau, secretive FBI "ghostreaders" monitored the latest developments in African American letters. By the time of Hoover’s death in 1972, these ghostreaders knew enough to simulate a sinister black literature of their own. The official aim behind the Bureau’s close reading was to anticipate political unrest. Yet, as William J. Maxwell reveals, FBI surveillance came to influence the creation and public reception of African American literature in the heart of the twentieth century. Taking his title from Richard Wright’s poem "The FB Eye Blues," Maxwell details how the FBI threatened the international travels of African American writers and prepared to jail dozens of them in times of national emergency. All the same, he shows that the Bureau’s paranoid style could prompt insightful criticism from Hoover’s ghostreaders and creative replies from their literary targets. For authors such as Claude McKay, James Baldwin, and Sonia Sanchez, the suspicion that government spy-critics tracked their every word inspired rewarding stylistic experiments as well as disabling self-censorship. Illuminating both the serious harms of state surveillance and the ways in which imaginative writing can withstand and exploit it, F.B. Eyes is a groundbreaking account of a long-hidden dimension of African American literature.
Download or read book William Maxwell written by Barbara A. Burkhardt and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Best known as the longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker, William Maxwell worked closely with greats like Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike, Mary McCarthy, John Cheever, and many others. His own novels include They Came Like Swallows and So Long, See You Tomorrow, and have become so highly acclaimed that many now consider him to be one of the twentieth-century's most important writers. Barbara A. Burkhardt's William Maxwell: A Literary Life represents the first major critical study of Maxwell's life and work.Writing with an economy and elegance befitting her subject, Burkhardt addresses Maxwell's highly autobiographical fiction by skillfully interweaving his biography with her own critical interpretations. She begins each chapter with commentary on the biographical circumstances and literary influences that affected each of his compositions. By contextualizing his novels and short stories in terms of events including his mother's early death from influenza, his marriage, and the role of his psychoanalysis under the guidance of Theodore Reik, Burkhardt's subsequent literary analyses achieve an unprecedented depth.Drawing on a wide range of previously unavailable material, Burkhardt includes letters written to Maxwell by authors like Eudora Welty and Louise Bogan, excerpts from Maxwell's unpublished manuscripts and correspondence, and her own interviews with key figures from his life, including John Updike, Roger Angell, New Yorker fiction editor Robert Henderson, and Maxwell's family and friends. She also presents several lengthy sessions with Maxwell himself.A must for anyone already familiar with the understated charms of Maxwell's writing, this volume also represents a major addition to the growing collection of New Yorker lore, sure to fascinate anyone interested in the fiction, history, and personalities connected with the most influential weekly.Barbara A. Burkhardt is an assistant professor of English at the University of Illinois at Springfield. A close acquaintance of Maxwell, she organized his correspondence for the Maxwell archives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign library, as well as writing the catalog for two exhibitions.
Download or read book Ancestors written by William Maxwell and published by Vintage. This book was released on 1995-01-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See You Tomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as he retraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, taking readers into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and small businessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how they imagined the world to come.
Download or read book Conversations with William Maxwell written by Barbara Burkhardt and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2012-05-09 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conversations with William Maxwell collects thirty-eight interviews, public speeches, and remarks that span five decades of the esteemed novelist and New Yorker editor’s career. The interviews collectively address the entirety of Maxwel’s literary work—with in-depth discussion of his short stories, essays, and novels including They Came Like Swallows, The Folded Leaf, and the American Book Award–winning So Long, See You Tomorrow—as well as his forty-year tenure as a fiction editor working with such luminaries as John Updike, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Vladimir Nabokov, and J.D. Salinger. Maxwell’s words spoken before a crowd, some previously unpublished, pay moving tribute to literary friends and mentors, and offer reflections on the artistic life, the process of writing, and his midwestern heritage. All retain the reserved poignancy of his fiction. The volume publishes for the first time the full transcript of Maxwell’s extensive interviews with his biographer and, in an introduction, correspondence with writers including Updike and Saul Bellow, which enlivens the stories behind his interviews and appearances.
Download or read book New Negro Old Left written by William J. Maxwell and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Maxwell uncovers both black literature's debt to Communism and Communism's debt to black literature, reciprocal obligations first incurred during the Harlem Renaissance.
Download or read book The Folded Leaf written by William Maxwell and published by . This book was released on 2010-12-14 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book My Mentor written by Alec Wilkinson and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling reflection on wisdom, friendship, and the craft of writing, My Mentor is also the touching story of a young man's education at the hands of a master, William Maxwell. At age twenty-four, Alec Wilkinson approached Maxwell in hopes of being taught to write. A quarter century of friendship followed. As a fiction editor of The New Yorker, Maxwell was unquestionably one of the past century's most respected editors; as the author of the masterpieces They Came Like Swallows and So Long, See You Tomorrow, he was one of its greatest American writers. His unparalleled ear for language and eye for detail, his depth of understanding and experience, make his instructions on writing an essential guide to the craft. In honoring this great man of letters, Wilkinson creates a "deft and sympathetic portrait" (New York Times Book Review).
Download or read book Maximum Insight written by Bill Maxwell and published by University Press of Florida. This book was released on 2021-05-11 with total page 476 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "One of the most distinctive and independent voices in American journalism . . . a voice that can inspire and infuriate . . . a voice that must not be ignored, especially if we Americans hope to create in this next century something that looks vaguely like a multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy."--Roy Peter Clark, Poynter Institute, St. Petersburg "Maxwell’s level of erudition is unusual among columnists . . . he often alludes to history, philosophy, literature, and the social sciences as he puts the news of the day into context."--Sam G. Riley, professor of communication studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute "An original and significant contribution to the literature of journalism and Florida culture."--Jay Black, Poynter-Jamison Chair in Media Ethics, University of South Florida With syndication in more than 200 newspapers and a faithful readership nationwide, Bill Maxwell’s status as one of the country’s preeminent black journalists is unquestionable. This collection of his columns, primarily from the St. Petersburg Times, forms a body of commentary on humanity (and lack of same) that will capture the hearts and minds of Americans. Maxwell covers a sweeping range of subjects, including race—a central but not exclusive theme. He asks hard questions that courageously attempt to understand hatred and injustice in America; and he takes on controversial issues many columnists avoid and a wide spectrum of national figures—from Jeb, George W. and Clarence Thomas to the Pope and Jesse Jackson. Maxwell writes movingly about his childhood as the son of migrant farm workers in rural Florida, his love of books—beginning with those plucked from garbage cans—and his everyday encounters with the white world and the black one. With a voice that is provocative and insights that are deep and passionate, he tackles the plight of migrant workers, the devastation of the environment, religious intolerance, homophobia, affirmative action, illiteracy, public education, civic responsibility, politics—and racism. He criticizes blacks and whites alike in his search for truth and right, especially in his exploration of what he calls “resurgent bigotry and Republicanism” and “the black writer’s most agonizing task—and duty—being dispassionate about the foibles and self-destructive behavior of African-Americans.” Setting a standard for the newspaper column as social criticism, Maximum Insight illuminates the role of the black writer as an interpreter of the forces that define a diverse America. Bill Maxwell writes a twice-weekly column for the St. Petersburg Times. Syndicated by the New York Times News Service and by Scripps-Howard, his columns appear in 200 newspapers worldwide and have received many writing awards, including the Florida Press Club’s plaque for general excellence in commentary twice in and the Community Champion Award from the American Trial Lawyers Association.
Download or read book James Baldwin written by William J. Maxwell and published by Skyhorse. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available in book form for the first time, the FBI's secret dossier on the legendary and controversial writer. Decades before Black Lives Matter returned James Baldwin to prominence, J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI considered the Harlem-born author the most powerful broker between black art and black power. Baldwin’s 1,884-page FBI file, covering the period from 1958 to 1974, was the largest compiled on any African American artist of the Civil Rights era. This collection of once-secret documents, never before published in book form, captures the FBI’s anxious tracking of Baldwin’s writings, phone conversations, and sexual habits—and Baldwin’s defiant efforts to spy back at Hoover and his G-men. James Baldwin: The FBI File reproduces over one hundred original FBI records, selected by the noted literary historian whose award-winning book, F.B. Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature, brought renewed attention to bureau surveillance. William J. Maxwell also provides an introduction exploring Baldwin's enduring relevance in the time of Black Lives Matter along with running commentaries that orient the reader and offer historical context, making this book a revealing look at a crucial slice of the American past—and present.
Download or read book Billie Dyer and Other Stories written by William Maxwell and published by G K Hall & Company. This book was released on 1993-01-01 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Billie Dyer -- Love -- The man in the moon -- With reference to an incident at the bridge -- My father's friends -- the front and back parts of the home -- The holy terror.
Download or read book William Maxwell Early Novels and Stories LOA 179 written by William Maxwell and published by . This book was released on 2008-01-10 with total page 1042 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With his second book, They Came Like Swallows (1937), William Maxwell found his signature subject matter—the fragility of human happiness—as well as his voice, a quiet, cadenced Midwestern voice that John Updike has called one of the wisest and kindest in American fiction. Set against the background of the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, this short novel presents the loving character of Elizabeth Morison, a devoted wife and mother, through the eyes of those whom she is fated to leave decades before her time. Edmund Wilson described The Folded Leaf (1945) as “a quite unconventional study of adolescent relationships—between two boys, with a girl in the offing—in Chicago and in a Middle Western college: very much lived and very much seen.” He praised this “drama of the immature” for the compassion Maxwell brings to his male protagonists, whose intensely felt, unarticulated bond is beyond their inchoate ability to understand. Time Will Darken It (1948) is a drama of the mature: a good man’s struggle to keep duty before desire and his family’s needs before his own. It paints a portrait of Draperville, Illinois, in 1912, a proud and isolated community governed by gossip, where an ambitious young woman must not overreach the limits society has placed on her sex, and an older, married gentleman must not encourage her should she dare. Together with these major works, this Library of America edition of Maxwell’s early fiction collects his lighthearted first novel, Bright Center of Heaven (1934), out of print for nearly 70 years, and nine masterly short stories. It concludes with “The Writer as Illusionist” (1955), Maxwell’s fullest statement on the art of fiction as he practiced it. LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nation’s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, America’s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Download or read book The Exiles of Madeira written by William Maxwell Blackburn and published by . This book was released on 1860 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Element of Lavishness written by William Maxwell and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2003-05-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An instant classic in the literature of friendship: the witty, affectionate 40-year correspondence between a great story-writer and her editor . . . pleasure and delight. In July 1938, William Maxwell, then twenty-nine years old and the acting poetry editor of The New Yorker, wrote to Sylvia Townsend Warner inviting her to send him verse. Miss Warner, forty-four and famous for her novel Lolly Willowes, had recently begun writing stories for the magazine, antic, inimitable sketches of English life that Maxwell adored. The poems were sent, and a remarkable friendship was begun.
Download or read book Over by the River and Other Stories written by William Maxwell and published by . This book was released on 1984 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Twelve stories, representing thirty years of Maxwell's work, trace the lines of attraction between people and between people and places, in New York, the Midwest, and France, and the weakening of those lines.
