by William Maxwell
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Product Description
hrough the eyes of two boys and their father, William Maxwell reveals the complex woman who is the unacknowledged source of their happiness--and whose death during the influenza epic of 1918 will devastate them all. They Came Like Swallows tenderly depicts the currents of love and need that run through every family--and whose true depth becomes evident only in moments of tragedy.
Amazon.com Review
In the Morison house the important goes unsaid and indirection is the operative mode--conversation stops where it should start and key terms such as fear, pain, pregnancy, fail to be addressed. The younger son, an eight-year-old, passes his days deciphering adults' inaccessible discussions. "In this fashion they communicated with each other, out of knowledge and experience inaccessible to Bunny. By nods and silences. By a tired curve of his mother's mouth. By his father's measuring glance over the top of his spectacles." Bunny's older brother would rather escape to the outside world, and their father finds declaiming the day's headlines--World War I's end and the onslaught of Spanish Influenza--far preferable to engagement. Only Elizabeth, their mother, is capable of holding the family together. The fifth main character in They Came Like Swallows is the house itself. Maxwell expresses the boys' reactions through this labile, interior landscape. Bunny finds the dining room can be "braced and ready for excitement"; later his brother realizes "for the first time how still the house was, how full of waiting, ... tense and expectant." Though war never makes it to Illinois, the flu changes all. First Bunny is stricken, and once he recovers Elizabeth, pregnant, dies from it. In quiet, piercing prose, William Maxwell's second novel, originally published in 1937, evokes the greatest of losses and the terrors of imagination.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 It hurt my heart to read. , 2008-07-11
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?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 Elegant prose, 2006-11-02
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!
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
The best from the invisible master, 2001-12-02
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.
4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
 Worth Reading, 2001-04-21
William Maxwell's short novel is a snapshot of a quintessential American family living during an interesting time. At the first World War comes to an end, the Illinios community is also rocked by an influenza outbreak. But while I found the topic interesting, I also found the characters flat. The youngest son, Bunny, is by far the most developed. In contrast, the father remains more of a sketch. After finishing the book I appreciated the clean, sparse writing style of Maxwell's novel, but didn't much care about saying goodbye to these characters. It's not a book that will linger with me.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Poignant, spare, taut, memorable, 2001-02-19
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)?
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