Customer Reviews

They Came Like Swallows (Modern Library)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I learned of this book thru its being listed by Amazon as one of the ten best books of the 1930s. It is easy to read, but is sad and poignant. It speaks first from the viewpoint of the 8-year-old, then from the viewpoint of the 13 year old, finally the denouement: When I closed the book I realized that it would remain in my memory far longer than most novels. For those of you familiar with Josephine Johnson's Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, Now in November, am I wrong to think this book resonates the way that book has done (read by me over 40 years ago)?

William Maxwell, longtime fiction editor for the New Yorker, had a prolific writing career that spanned seven decades. His writing is spare and elegant, his characters genuine. This short(150 pages)novel deals with a family coping with the death of the mother. Each of the three chapters is written from the perspective of one of the survivors -- a preteen boy, a teenage boy, and their father. There is not a wasted or misplaced word in this book. Maxwell manages to capture the depth of experience of each of the characters in very few words. Maxwell should be ranked with the greatest of 20th century American authors; his relative obscurity is a mystery to me. This is my favorite of his novels.

W.B. Yeats said: "And yet a woman's powerful character could keep a swallow to its first intent." Bunny is eight and Robert is thirteen the year their mother dies. In 174 brief pages, William Maxwell portrays a mother as seen through the eyes of her husband and two sons. To tender Bunny, his mother is the great protector; to adventurous Robert with one good leg, his mother is his champion who sees him as "normal" and able. To a loving husband, she is the reason his life has taken shape "by her wisdom and by her love." At the end of the book Robert's father asks, "You won't forget your mother, will you, Robert?" The reader won't forget this touching book either. I believe the author's mother died of influenza when he was a child so I wonder how much is perhaps a memoir.

I teach an undergraduate course in epidemiology and a video I show features elderly people who remember the 1918 flu epidemic in the U.S. One interview featured William Maxwell, who spoke eloquently about the illness and death of his mother as a result of the disease and this caused "the shine to go out of everything." I didn't make the connection between this interview and the William Maxwell of The New Yorker fame until recently. I just finished this book and found the simple story to be very moving. Based no doubt on losing his mother to the flu, he crafts a simple story from the point of view of her two sons and husband who lose their mother/wife, the reader realizes the devastation that comes when a family member is lost. The wife/mother is the heart of this family and the loss they feel is poignantly revealed by the three narrators. This is the first William Maxwell book I've read and I intend to explore some others. Maxwell is a gentle writer and I look forward to reading more. Give this one a try!

The novel is split into three sections and each uses a different point of view--first Bunny, then Robert, then the father. The points of view are extraordinarily well realized. An authentic, believable young child's point of view is difficult for any writer to achieve--Maxwell's Bunny rings true--so true it could be the tuning fork. It has no equal.
My only caveat is that I find the original version better than the current edition, which changed a scene or two. (Why?) Read the current edition and go to the library or haunt your used bookstore for the original.

The great griefs and terrors of childhood are in this book as well as the joys and mysteries.

I read it once then turned immediately to the first page and began again.

Words fail me when it comes to describing this exquisitely rendered little novel first published over seventy years ago. Two boys, eight and thirteen, lose a mother; a husband a wife, sisters a sister. This is perhaps the most delicately described story of pain, loss and relationships I have encountered in many years. The sense of time and place, of a small town in Illinois in 1918, the year of the horrific Spanish influenza epidemic, is so real you can lose yourself as if the ensuing seventy-plus years had never happened. Like Maxwell's other book I have reviewed here, The Folded Leaf, this book - They Came Like Swallows - is simply beautiful. A masterpiece. - Tim Bazzett, author of LOVE, WAR & POLIO

This book was originally published in 1937, so Maxwell wrote it in his 20s. It is semi-autobiographical and is set during the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. It's a highly psychological novel and the language is clear, unadorned, but consistently beautiful. This is my first William Maxwell read, and I look forward to going through his other novels.

As is usual for me, after reading this book I took a look at some of the reviews. Certain words come back again and again: "gentle", "touching", "poignant", "restrained", "understated". In that sense, I don't have very much to add besides yes. yes, yes, yes and yes again.

I guess that it could be argued that the book is a little bit slight, but at the time of reading it was a very emotional experience for me. Maxwell details the intense claustrophobic relationship between mother and children in a real and painful way. Saying that it was moving isn't quite enough for me, but I'm going to have to let it suffice.

I read They Came Like Swallows based on a recommendation. I won't hesitate to read other works by Maxwell. Any suggestions?

William Maxwell's "They Came Like Swallows" is set in 1918-19, during the deadly flu pandemic that killed millions of people all over the world. It recalls a time before antibiotics, a time when a serious illness could appear suddenly and unpredictably, with devastating results. I am old enough to remember when a sibling came down with scarlet fever and my grandmother, who was paying us a visit, was utterly panicked. Born in 1895, she had, as a small child, suddenly lost both parents to an epidemic. It is this world that the novel evokes.

Maxwell recreates the flu epidemic and its impact through the eyes of three different characters: eight-year old Bunny, whose mother, Elizabeth Morison, is the absolute center of his world; his adolescent brother Robert, whose ties to his family are more complex, and that of their father, James. The flu arrives with Bunny, who, like most children, does not know he is sick and merely feels "odd," until he hears his mother say, "' James, this child is burning up with fever!'" At that moment, the novel shifts from Bunny's wonderful child's view of his family to quarantines, hushed voices, urgent messages from the sick room, and the voice of the excluded Robert, who observes what is happening in his family from the edges. Last is the father's voice, and the novel's depiction of his numb grief and of the fussy formalities of small town mourning rituals is a marvel of compactness and intensity. "They Came Like Swallows" is wonderfully observed and written; you will not be able to put it down.