SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by...

SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell (Vintage: $10.; 135 pp.). This short, elegant novel chronicles the effects of a murder on a small Illinois town in 1921. Maxwell slowly assembles the reasons for the crime of passion that irrevocably changes the lives of everyone in the community. The narrator’s fascination with this murder springs from his need to atone for his failure to stand by his friend, the hapless son of the murderer. In sturdy, understated prose, Maxwell reconstructs a bygone era and the passions that flourished beneath its deceptively serene exterior.