Time Will Darken It

Description

A visit from relatives sparks an implosion in the life of a good-natured family man The decision to invite his Southern relatives to stay proves a fateful one for Austin King. By the time they leave, his reputation and his marriage have suffered irreparable damage. Against the perfectly-drawn background of small-town Illinois at the turn of the 20th century, Maxwell once again uncovers the seeds of potential tragedy at the heart of a happily-established family.

William Maxwell (1908-2000) was born 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 40 years, he helped to shape the prose and careers of John Updike, John Cheever, John O'Hara, Sylvia Townsend Warner and Eudora Welty. His novel, So Long Tomorrow won the American Book Award, and in 1995 he received the PEN/Malamud Award.

This is such a good novel that I'm still shaking thinking about it... A novel not to be recommended to people but to be pressed on them, urgently -- Nicholas Lezard * Guardian * Truly magnificent...I implore you now, not to let it pass you by * Glasgow Herald * A novel written with sympathy and with restraint, and in a prose thatt is almost poetically direct and sure... If you do not read Time Will Darken It you will have missed something rare * San Francisco Chronicle * Here is a book that is as near perfection as it is possible for a novel to be * Boston Globe * He conjures depths of pain and regret in words of radiant simplicity * Observer *