Description
Book SynopsisThe illustrious life and works of the famous
New Yorker editor
Trade Review"Maxwell gets his due in this combination of biography and critical study . . . this solid book will work as a guarantee against future neglect."--
ALA Booklist"In deeply layered, supple, and clear prose, Burkhardt captures the dramas of Maxwell's life. . . . Burkhardt explores Maxwell's fiction as though opening a door to a new world, a world as wide as the prairie skies that define Maxwell's imaginative universe."--
Chicago Tribune"A valiant attempt to chart the relations between the stories Maxwell told and the stories he lived. . . .
William Maxwell rises splendidly to the occasion of his best novels and stories."--
New York Times"Very capably opens discussion of a long-overlooked writer, and sheds much useful light on his coming-of-intellectual-age."--
Washington Post"Required reading for any devoted Maxwell enthusiast."--
Publishers Weekly“William Maxwell is a timely and important book, created out of Barbara Burkhardt’s perceptive vision of the man and his work, her painstaking scholarship, and her unique access to Maxwell himself.”--Penelope Niven, author of the award-winning
Carl Sandburg: A BiographyTable of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Credits xiii
Meeting Maxwell 1
Introduction 7
1. Childhood: A Lifetime of Material, 1908-33 19
2. First Fiction:
Bright Center of Heaven, 1933-34 48
3. Breakout Novel:
They Came Like Swallows, 1934-38 61
4. Mature Novelist 1:
The Folded Leaf, 1938-45 79
5. Mature Novelist 2:
Time Will Darken It, 1945-48 135
6. Turning Point:
The New Yorker and
The Chateau, 1948-61 171
7. The Novelist as Historian:
Ancestors, 1961-71 205
8. Maxwell's New York, 1974-76 219
9. The Masterwork:
So Long, See You Tomorrow, 1972-80 229
10. Summing Up: Late Short Works, 1980-92 257
Conclusion: Stand, Accepting 270
Notes 275
Index 297
Illustrations follow page 170
