| So Long, See You Tomorrow | |
|---|---|
1st book edition, cover designed by William Maxwell's daughter and inspired by Giacometti's sculpture Palace at 4 a.m, discussed in the novel.[1] |
|
| Author(s) | William Maxwell |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | The New Yorker (magazine) Knopf (book) |
| Publication date | 1979 (magazine) 1980 (book) |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 135 |
| ISBN | 0-394-50835-1 |
So Long, See You Tomorrow is a novel by American author William Maxwell. It was first published in The New Yorker magazine in October 1979 in two parts[2] and appeared in book form the following year published by Knopf.[3]
It won the National Book Award for Fiction (paperback)[4] and the William Dean Howells Medal[5] and has been lauded as "the most magnificently praised novel of the decade"[6] and by Michael Ondaatje as "one of the great books of our age".[7]
The novel is based on fact and has been described as an 'autobiographical metafiction'.[8]
It is set in Maxwell's hometown Lincoln, Illinois and tells of a murder that occurred in 1921. Fifty years later the guilt-ridden narrator recounts how the relationships between two neighbouring families led to the murder and how he himself failed to support Cletus, a close schoolfriend who was the son of the murderer.[9]