Short stories by William Maxwell
William Keepers Maxwell Jr. (August 16, 1908 – July 31, 2000) was an American editor, novelist, short story writer, essayist, children's author, and memoirist. He served as a fiction editor at The New Yorker_ from 1936 to 1975. An editor devoted to his writers, Maxwell became a legendary mentor and confidant to many of the most prominent authors of his day. Although best known as an editor, Maxwell was a highly respected and award-winning novelist and short story writer. His stature as a celebrated author has grown in the years following his death.
Listing 3 stories.
In a series of commentaries on the human condition — life, truth, happiness, death — a spinster sister takes in her dead sister’s children; a man is entranced by the endless waves which roll and crash in the ocean; a carpenter wrestles with the burden of being everyone’s confidante; a dying railroad crossing watchman shares a simple but complex wisdom.
A New York-based family of four, distracted by their own minor inconveniences in life, ignore much more dire situations in the world around them.
On a vacation in France with his wife and family, Reynolds reminisces about the trip he and his wife took to Mont-Saint Michel decades ago, despairing at the bigger and faster pace of the town and the beauty and culture that seems to have been lost since then.