Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0006621, Sun, 16 Jun 2002 20:55:39 -0700

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[Fwd: for over 40 years he edited such literary giants as ..
Vladimir Nabokov ...]
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EDITOR's NOTE. The following excerpted item on VN New Yorker editor
William Maxwell
may be worth reading to see what, if anything, it contains about his
relationship with VN. NABOKV-L would be grateful for comment on the
matter. As I recall Maxwell's papers are at the University of Illinois
and someone who was working on gave a paper at MLA meeting a few years ago.
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: for over 40 years he edited such literary giants as .. Vladimir
Nabokov ...
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 15:38:09 -0400
From: "Sandy P. Klein" <spklein52@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: SPKlein52@HotMail.com
To:
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http://www.sun-sentinel.com/features/books/search/sfl-bkflblighjun16.story





My Mentor tribute to writer, friend

By Thomas Bligh
special Correspondent
Posted June 16 2002



My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell. Alec
Wilkinson. Houghton Mifflin. $22. 192 pp.

William Maxwell has been called a writer's writer, which suggests his
books are highly literary and difficult. They are not. They're merely
beautifully written. His novels often concern a lost childhood in the
Midwest, with themes of friendship and fractured families.

So Long, See You Tomorrow, which won the American Book Award in 1980,
and 1948's Time Will Darken It are considered his finest novels, though
his earlier books, They Came Like Swallows and The Folded Leaf, made his
reputation. They Came Like Swallows is in the Modern Library.

Yet no biography of Maxwell has been published to date, nor has anyone
published a full-length study of his works. This has much to do with
Maxwell's other career as a fiction editor at The New Yorker, where for
over 40 years he edited such literary giants as J.D. Salinger, John
Updike, Eudora Welty, Mary McCarthy, and Vladimir Nabokov.

His day job took time away from his novels. Maxwell died in July 2000,
and Alec Wilkinson's memoir of their 25-year friendship is a great
tribute to a writer who seldom drew attention to himself.


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