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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant, spare, taut, memorable,
By
This review is from: They Came Like Swallows (Paperback)
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)?
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best from the invisible master,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: They Came Like Swallows (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
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.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A mother's love is tenderly remembered,
This review is from: They Came Like Swallows (Modern Library) (Hardcover)
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.
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