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They Came Like Swallows (Nonpareil Book, 48) - Softcover

 
9780879236779: They Came Like Swallows (Nonpareil Book, 48)
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James and his two sons, Peter and Robert, must adjust to the death of the boys' mother

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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 and 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--the end of World War I 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 realises "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. --Amazon.com
Review:
"A story of such engaging warmth that it would thaw the heart of any critic... will melt many a reader to tears."- Times
"A heart-warming tale, the book bears witness to William Maxwell's genuine artistry."- Christian Science Monitor
"Rare...exquisite...a cameo-like perfection."- The New York Herald Tribune
"A sensitive, wistful reminiscence... very delightful."- V.S. Pritchett

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Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780679772576: They Came Like Swallows (Vintage International)

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ISBN 10:  ISBN 13:  9780679772576
Publisher: Pantheon Books Inc, 1997
Softcover

  • 9781860469282: They Came Like Swallows

    Vintag..., 2001
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  • 9780679602477: They Came Like Swallows (Modern Library)

    Modern..., 1997
    Hardcover

  • 9781860468131: They Came Like Swallows

    Harvil..., 2000
    Softcover

  • 9780099448679: They Came Like Swallows

    Vintage, 2099
    Hardcover

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Maxwell, William
Published by David R Godine Pub (1988)
ISBN 10: 0879236779 ISBN 13: 9780879236779
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