Product Description

On a winter morning in the 1920s, a shot is fired on a farm in rural Illinois. Lloyd Wilson is dead. A tenuous friendship between two lonely teenagers - the narrator, whose mother died young, and Cletus Smith, a troubled farmboy - is shattered: Cletus's father committed the murder.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #122232 in Books
• Published on: 1997-12-19
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 135 pages

Customer Reviews

Perfect short novel
William Maxwell is criminally under-rated in this country (or rather, not nearly as well known as he should be); in the US he is still remembered as a writer's writer and as the fiction editor at the New Yorker who crucially shaped the work of some of the US's best writers.
'So Long See You Tomorrow' is a fantastic introduction to his beautiful, lucid prose, his ability to evoke childhood and the passing of time. It really is a perfect short novel, one I have re-read several times and will never tire of.

William Maxwell - So Long, See You Tomorrow
This short novel is heartbreakingly beautiful, a wrench and a joy to read. Gradually layers of pain and loss are built up as we're shown the destructive path of a lonely helpless affair and the horrific effect it has on a the two families concerned, and of the man it effects most deeply, a sharply tempered farmer who does nothing to deserve the heartbreaking breakup of everything he holds dear. Maxwell writes simply and beautifully, in the way of great writers, and this book deserves a great, appreciative readership.

Having read this, I think Maxwell might jsut deserve the same kind of resurgence that Richard Yates is currently having. A neglected work, a miniature masterpiece of great beauty.

A subtle, inspiring masterpiece
This is the sort of book that makes you move beyond the words it uses into the world and, beyond that, the experiences it describes. I strongly recommend this book to every reader. I'd write more but I want to order his next book now...