William Maxwell était un romancier américain et rédacteur de fiction au New Yorker. Sa fiction acclamée, de plus en plus considérée comme l'une des plus importantes du XXe siècle, explore fréquemment les thèmes de l'enfance, de la famille, de la perte et des vies qui changent silencieusement et irrévocablement. Une grande partie de son œuvre est autobiographique, en particulier concernant la perte de sa mère pendant l'enfance, ce qui a profondément façonné sa vision du monde. L'écriture de Maxwell se caractérise par une réflexion poignante sur la fugacité de la vie et un sens profond et résonant du lieu.
Through seven wonderfully moving stories, 40-year New Yorker editor William Maxwell revisits his native town of Lincoln, Illinois, in the early 1900s and brings back some of its inhabitants who peopled his youth and have, through the years, haunted his memories. Billie Dyer -- Love -- The man in the moon -- With reference to an incident at a bridge -- My father's friends -- The front and the back parts of the home -- The holy terror
The book showcases a remarkable forty-year correspondence between a celebrated author and her editor at The New Yorker, highlighting their witty and affectionate exchanges. Through their letters, the evolution of their friendship unfolds, revealing insights into their creative processes and the literary world. This collection captures the essence of their bond, making it a significant contribution to the literature of friendship.
The Marvell family is on the move, driving from their Wisconsin farm to visit the children's grandmother in Virginia. The night before their departure, Mr. Marvell talks to Roger, Heather, and the twins about the wonders of the night sky and explains the zodiac — a beautiful trail traveled by the sun in the daytime and by the moon and planets at night. The pathway's 12 sections, called the "signs" of the zodiac, contain clusters of stars. Long ago shepherds and sailors identified the clusters with characters from mythology, and so the heavens became filled with gods and heroes, hunters, ploughmen, and archers as well as birds, bears, farm animals, and monsters. Upon the family's arrival in Virginia, Mr. Marvell sets up his telescope but he can't find the Crab —it has disappeared from the sky! Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin, a strange light emanates from the Marvells' house, illuminating every board, windowpane, shingle, brick, and stone. What could be causing it? A Newbery Honor book of 1947, this extraordinary tale by a noted American author is gloriously illustrated with woodcut-style scratchboard graphics.
In settings that range from small town Illinois to the Upper East Side of Manhattan, these stories are distinguished by Maxwell's inimitable wisdom and kindness, his sense of the small details that make up a life, the nuances of joy and sadness that change its direction.
The decision to invite his Southern relatives to stay proves a fateful one for Austin King. Against the perfectly-drawn background of small-town Illinois at the turn of the 20th century, Maxwell once again uncovers the seeds of potential tragedy at the heart of a happily-established family.
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
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
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.
Spud Latham is slow at school but quick to fight and a natural athlete - Lymie Peters, thin, pigeon-chested and terrible at games, is devoted to him. It is Lymie who first meets Sally Forbes, but it is Spud she falls in love with. This signals the end of their friendship and the rift is almost more than Lymie can bear.
It is 1948 and a young American couple arrive in France for a holiday, full of anticipation and enthusiasm. But the countryside and people are war-battered, and their reception at the Chateau Beaumesnil is not all the open-hearted Americans could wish for.