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All the days and nights : the collected stories of W. Maxwell / William Maxwell.

By: Maxwell, William, 1908-2000.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 1995Description: x, 415 p. ; 24 cm.ISBN: 0679438297.Subject(s): City and town life -- Illinois -- Fiction | Americans -- France -- Social life and customs -- Fiction | Family -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction | Manhattan (New York, NY) -- Social life and customs -- FictionDDC classification: 813.54
Contents:
Over by the river (1974) -- The Trojan women (1952) -- The pilgrimage (1953) -- The patterns of love (1945) -- What every boy should know (1954) -- A game of chess (1965) -- The French scarecrow (1956) -- Young Francis Whitehead (1939) -- A final report (1963) -- Haller's second home (1941) -- The gardens of Mont-Saint-Michel (1969) -- The value of money (1964) -- The thistles in Sweden (1976) -- The poor orphan girl (1965) -- The lily-white boys (1986) -- Billie Dyer (1989) -- Love (1983) -- The man in the moon (1984) -- With reference to an incident at a bridge (1984) -- My father's friends (1984) -- The front and the back parts of the house (1991) -- The holy terror (1986) -- What he was like (1992) -- (to be continued)
(Continued) A set of twenty-one Improvisations : A love story -- The industrious tailor -- The country where nobody ever grew old and died -- The fisherman who had nobody to go out in his boat with him -- The two women friends -- The carpenter -- The man who had no friends and didn't want any -- A fable begotten of an echo of a line of verse by W.B. Yeats -- The blue finch of Arabia -- The sound of waves -- The woman who never drew breath except to complain -- The masks -- The man who lost his father -- The old woman whose house was beside a running stream -- The pessimistic fortune-teller -- The printing office -- The lamplighter -- The kingdom where straightforward, logical thinking was admired over every other kind -- The old man at the railroad crossing -- A mean and spiteful toad -- All the days and nights.
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Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode Item holds
General Lending MTU Bishopstown Library Lending 813.54 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00010564
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

From the American Book Award-winning author of Ancestors and Time Will Darken comes a masterful collection of stories, spanning more than 50 years--a tour of a world that engages readers entirely, and whose characters command the deepest loyalty and tenderness.

Over by the river (1974) -- The Trojan women (1952) -- The pilgrimage (1953) -- The patterns of love (1945) -- What every boy should know (1954) -- A game of chess (1965) -- The French scarecrow (1956) -- Young Francis Whitehead (1939) -- A final report (1963) -- Haller's second home (1941) -- The gardens of Mont-Saint-Michel (1969) -- The value of money (1964) -- The thistles in Sweden (1976) -- The poor orphan girl (1965) -- The lily-white boys (1986) -- Billie Dyer (1989) -- Love (1983) -- The man in the moon (1984) -- With reference to an incident at a bridge (1984) -- My father's friends (1984) -- The front and the back parts of the house (1991) -- The holy terror (1986) -- What he was like (1992) -- (to be continued)

(Continued) A set of twenty-one Improvisations : A love story -- The industrious tailor -- The country where nobody ever grew old and died -- The fisherman who had nobody to go out in his boat with him -- The two women friends -- The carpenter -- The man who had no friends and didn't want any -- A fable begotten of an echo of a line of verse by W.B. Yeats -- The blue finch of Arabia -- The sound of waves -- The woman who never drew breath except to complain -- The masks -- The man who lost his father -- The old woman whose house was beside a running stream -- The pessimistic fortune-teller -- The printing office -- The lamplighter -- The kingdom where straightforward, logical thinking was admired over every other kind -- The old man at the railroad crossing -- A mean and spiteful toad -- All the days and nights.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

In the preface to this collection of short fiction written over a period of 50 years, former New Yorker editor Maxwell (The Outermost Dreams: Essays and Reviews, LJ 4/15/89) tells of his youthful decision to go to sea to have something to write about, unaware that all the material he would ever need was right in front of him in the details of everyday life. A recurring theme in these wise, elegant stories is the difficulty of communication. In "A Game of Chess," two brothers trade backhanded compliments over dinner. In "The Value of Money," a grown-up son enjoys some quiet time with his father, knowing that every conceivable topic of conversation will lead to an argument. In "The Thistles in Sweden," a husband and wife find themselves able to say things to each other in French that they were incapable of saying in English. These deceptively simple and beautifully written stories resonate with meaning. Recommended for all fiction collections.-Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angelesmond (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

For over six decades, Maxwell has scrupulously eschewed literary postures for a crystalline elegance almost unparalleled in contemporary American fiction. A New Yorker editor for 40 years and American Book Award recipient for his 1980 novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, Maxwell has selected 23 short stories and 21 "improvisations" that he deems worth saving. All the tales from Over by the River and Other Stories (1977) and from Billie Dyer and Other Stories (1992) are included, as are 16 of the 29 improvisations originally published as The Old Man at the Railroad Crossing and Other Tales (1966). Three strong uncollected stories-"A Game of Chess," "The Lily-White Boys" and "What He Was Like"-as well as six new improvisations complete the group. Maxwell has always braided his family history into his storyteller's art, and the first section here draws much from his experiences as a boy in Lincoln, Ill. (where he was born in 1908), from time spent in France and from contemporary life in New York. In these stories, people frequently suffer under the misapprehension that they understand those around them, or even themselves, and are recurrently made restless by indefinable dreams or fears. The keys to deliverance are, invariably for Maxwell, compassion and love. The improvisations, which make up the second section, are ``spontaneous inventions'' created for special occasions, such as his wife's birthday, commemorated in the fine title piece. Many begin with "Once upon a time" and become linear, sometimes enigmatic fables for adults, illuminating issues of commitment, betrayal, death, personal responsibility and human kindness. This volume is conclusive evidence that Maxwell stands at the pinnacle of American letters. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Booklist Review

Maxwell has been called one of American literature's best-kept secrets, though he has a loyal and passionate following. Now his devoted fans as well as readers new to his quiet magic will be able to appreciate the full range of his storytelling powers. This majestic collection contains 23 stories written over the course of 53 years as well as a set of charming, fablelike "improvisations" written, as Maxwell explains in his preface, to "please" his wife. In each enveloping and poignant tale, Maxwell deftly traces the spiraling of emotions concealed within his restrained characters, embroidering his meticulous and beautifully modulated stories on the unevenly textured fabric of life itself, where fineness and coarseness are woven together in no reliable pattern. In "Over by the River," for example, a Manhattan family possesses all the accoutrements of a comfortable, happy life, but parents and children alike have nightmares, subconsciously attuned to the fact that the world is intrinsically unsafe. Time, change, and loss also occupy Maxwell's attention, a theme he explores to exquisite effect in "The Gardens of Mont-Saint-Michel," a story about an American family on vacation in France, and in "The Value of Money," one of Maxwell's masterful stories about Draperville, Illinois. In this tale, a man visiting his father is struck by the stories an old friend of the family tells him: "Dr. McBride understood the use of the surprising juxtaposition, the impact of things left unsaid." This, of course, describes Maxwell's gift to a tee. ~--Donna Seaman

Kirkus Book Review

Underappreciated as a novelist, Maxwell does little to enhance his reputation by collecting his short fiction, a volume of stories written over the past 50 years. The complete contents of the justly praised Billy Dyer (1991)- -related stories that resemble Maxwell's novels--are reproduced here. And the last quarter of the collection reprints what Maxwell himself calls ``improvisations,'' a series of fractured fables originally written to entertain his wife. These slight modern morality tales derive whatever complexity they have by juxtaposing archaic diction and contemporary concerns, but they're mostly too formulaic. An industrious tailor can't appreciate life in the present; a carpenter breaks his vow to keep secrets and shatters a town's serenity; in a land of immortals, the people begin to commit suicide. At two or three pages each, these provide Maxwell little room to flex his literary muscle. But even the stories from Maxwell's first collection of fiction--mostly about Upper East Side Manhattanites who live in fear of the city's darker corners and escape to country houses--aren't that impressive. The stories about French travel and its disappointments seem like cautionary tales for the sophisticated traveler. In ``A Game of Chess,'' Maxwell is particularly caustic about boorish Americans from the heartland who can't understand their bohemian relations in New York. The best stories, like Maxwell's novels, are nostalgic, recalling a genteel bourgeois life in downstate Illinois in the earlier decades of the century. ``What Every Boy Should Know'' beautifully captures the pangs of adolescence as an awkward boy copes with sex and a demanding father. Maxwell waxes poetic about a charming walk-up in Manhattan's Murray Hill in ``The Thistles of Sweden'' and sorrowfully rues the decline of New York in ``The Lily-White Boys,'' a sour tale of a Christmas Eve burglary. If you've already read Billy Dyer, there's little here worth exploring, especially if you haven't yet enjoyed Maxwell's wonderful novels.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Born in Lincoln, Illinois in 1908, William Maxwell is one of America's more prominent writers. He is the recipient of numerous awards including the National Book Critics Circle Award (1994), and the American Book Award (1982) for his novel "So Long, See You Tomorrow."

Maxwell's fiction has been described as nostalgic. Most of his work takes place in simpler, gentler times in the small towns of the American Midwest. Two of Maxwell's novels, "They Came Like Swallows" (1937) and "So Long, See You Tomorrow" (1980), deal with characters who lose relatives in the influenza epidemic of 1918. Maxwell's own mother died in the epidemic when he was ten years old.

Maxwell published his first novel, "Bright Center of Heaven," in 1934. He moved to New York City in 1936 and was hired by the New Yorker. His years as an editor there, 1936 to 1976, coincided with what many believe are the magazine's finest. This was the era that saw the publication of the works of many accomplished writers, such as J. D. Salinger, Eudora Welty, John Updike, and Mary McCarthy in the New Yorker's pages.

Maxwell has published six novels, several collections of short stories, a family history, and numerous book reviews. He served as president of the National Institute of Arts and letters from 1969 to 1972.

William Maxwell has been married for over 50 years to the former Emily Noyes. They met at the New Yorker when she applied for a job. The couple has two daughters.

(Bowker Author Biography)

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