William Maxwell died in 2000 at the age of 91. He was a fiction editor at The New Yorker magazine from 1937 to 1977, where he published such writers as Salinger, Cheever, and Updike. He once said, ”As a writer I don't very much enjoy being edited. As an editor I tried to work so slightly on the manuscript that 10 years later the writer would read his story and not be aware that anybody was involved but him.”

His respect for the written word, his intelligence, and his meticulousness as an editor carried over into his writing. His first novel, Bright Center of Heaven, was published in 1934. It was followed by five more novels, four books of short stories, a book of essays, and a memoir. His final novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow was published in 1980, and it’s a book that could easily consume a semester of study.

So Long, See You Tomorrow is poetic in its spare, efficient, and fine use of language. And its subject, a murder-suicide in a rural mid-west town, is gripping. But it’s the intricate structure of this novel that fascinates.

Maxwell has his narrator tell the reader early on that although the horrible event at the center of the novel actually occurred, he wasn’t there. He heard about it only after it was over. But he will imagine the events that led up to it, will imagine the event itself, and imagine the events that followed. It’s a unique approach. “I’m going to tell you a story,” the character says, “and I’m going to make it up.” It’s what we writers do. We ‘make it up.’ But we don’t often announce it. Maxwell does, and then he proceeds to weave a tale of such complexity and authenticity, the fact that it’s based on little more than imagination falls away, and the characters he creates come into existence, and the events he portrays become as real as your own.

There are multiple stories in this novel. The sensational story that hit the newspapers and changed so many lives, yes, but also the less lurid, but equally potent events that touch all lives…death, divorce, accident, the loss of innocence. All are tied together in the arbitrary nature of their occurrence, their unfairness, and the way the events, once set in motion, stay in motion much longer than could ever be anticipated, with affects that last too long and take an inordinate toll on those even marginally close enough to feel the currents they launch.

“So long, see you tomorrow” – something we utter in such an off-handed way, assuming tomorrow will be just as today. But what if it’s not? What if it’s as different and unexpected and awful from today as we can imagine?

So Long, See You Tomorrow is a wonderful, deep, thought-provoking novel. A book for readers to ponder and read again. A book for writers to learn from.