They Came Like Swallows

Illness, regret, recovery, loss: it’s our times in another key. We watch as ordinary lives take an extraordinary turn — the flu felling some and sparing others, and laying bare their emotional lives as it goes – Gish JenMaxwell does something all great novelists do: he conjures depths of pain and regret in words of radiant simplicity – Anthony Quinn * Observer *As you read They Came Like Swallows, you catch yourself from time to time being astonished at how tightly you’re gripping the pages… There isn’t a word that has dated. It could have been written yesterday, or tomorrow – Nicholas Lezard * Guardian *A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic… Will melt many a reader to tears * TIME *As the voices of Austen, Turgenev and Tolstoy have survived, so will Maxwell’s * The Times *This characteristically gentle story about a family tragedy lingers long in the memory as does all this master’s work * Irish Times *An excellent introduction to his sympathetic, refined and humane art, and is a most moving and impressive artefact in itself * Independent on Sunday *A lovely, heartbreaking book * New York Sun *Rare…exquisite…a cameo-like perfection * New York Herald Tribune *

William Maxwell was born on 16th August 1908 in Illinois. He was the author of a distinguished body of work- six novels, three short story collections, an autobiographical memoir and a collection of literary essays and reviews. A New Yorker editor for forty years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O’Hara and Eudora Welty. His novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and he received the PEN/Malamud Award.

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