William Maxwell

"Known as a beloved, longtime fiction editor at The New Yorker, William Maxwell worked closely with such legendary writers as John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov, Mary McCarthy, and John Cheever. His own novels include They Came Like Swallows, and the American Book Award-winning So Long, See You Tomorrow, and have become so highly acclaimed that many now consider him to be one of the most important writers to come out of the Midwest in the twentieth century. Barbara Burkhardt's William Maxwell: A Literary Life represents the first major critical study of this Illinois writer's life and work." "Burkhardt addresses Maxwell's highly autobiographical fiction by interweaving a portrait of the author with her own critical interpretations. She begins each chapter with commentary on the life 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 Theodor 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Burkhardt includes letters written to Maxwell by authors such as Eudora Welty and Louise Bogan, excerpts from Maxwell s unpublished manuscripts and correspondence, and her own interviews with key figures from his life, including John Updike, Roger Angell, New Yorker fiction editor Robert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 Maxwell's own views on his life and work, which he shared with her in conversations and correspondence over a number of years."--Jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.