Review of Barbara Burkhardt’s speech at Lincoln College

Evolution of narrative voice distinguishes the writings of William Maxwell

[NOV. 4, 2000]  What distinguishes Lincoln native William Maxwell from all other authors, according to biographer Barbara Burkhardt, is his revelation of how perceptions can evolve while the core experiences on which they are based remain constant. Over a literary lifetime of more than six decades, Maxwell’s most frequent topic was his response to the death of his mother from Spanish influenza when he was 10. The consistent focus brings out changes in interpretation and style.

Burkhardt’s speech at Lincoln College on Nov. 2 was the third in the Ralph G. Newman annual lecture series. In it, she described the development and organization of her soon-to-be-published "William Maxwell: A Critical Biography." Burkhardt, whose doctoral dissertation analyzed Maxwell’s fiction, is adjunct professor of English at University of Illinois in Springfield and Urbana-Champaign.

William Maxwell died July 31, 2000, at the age of 91, just eight days after the death of his wife Emily. Maxwell was born in 1908 in Lincoln, where he lived until the age of 14. The elm-shaded town of those years forms the Edenic setting for much of his work, what he termed his "imagination’s home."

 

Burkhardt used incidents from the editing of "The Folded Leaf," published in 1945, and "So Long, See You Tomorrow," 1980, to show Maxwell’s development in confidence over time. In the earlier book, he added a more optimistic ending at the recommendation of his psychoanalyst. This "single item included at someone else’s instigation," said Burkhardt, was the most widely criticized aspect of the novel. In a later reprint, he returned to his original ending.

 

Many editorial recommendations were made for "So Long, See You Tomorrow," originally published in the New Yorker, at which Maxwell was a fiction editor from 1936 to 1976. In several instances, Maxwell defended the authenticity of his character’s Midwest usage over the more "correct" editorial suggestions. He also disregarded the comment that including the point of view of the dog diminished the credibility of the work. "These assured responses revealed Maxwell’s confidence in his own literary judgment," Burkhardt said, showing that he "had grown to trust himself."

 

 

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Burkhardt recounted the origin of her admiration for Maxwell from her first reading of "So Long, See You Tomorrow" as an assignment for a graduate class. Her own mother had died not long before, and she was struck by the narrator’s voice and how Maxwell had the emotions "just right." She immediately sought out Maxwell’s sources in the historical archives in Springfield and was able to present him with some divorce documents he could not locate when he wrote the book.

She enthusiastically described interviews at which Maxwell answered questions by typewriter, first a manual and eventually an electric. At his summer home the interview was conducted outside, and the long cord snaked through the window.

 

Maxwell’s style was "very bare and very simple" and increasingly so as he aged, Burkhardt said. In response to one of many questions, she said he termed himself an atheist but had a spiritual sense that included "a fragile balance of tragedy and joy."

In 1997 Burkhardt was instrumental in securing John Updike as speaker for the dedication of the Maxwell papers at the University of Illinois library in Urbana-Champaign. Updike, Mary McCarthy, J. D. Salinger, Eudora Welty, John Cheever and Vladimir Nabokov were among the writers Maxwell edited for the New Yorker.

[Lynn Spellman]

 

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