They Came Like Swallows

By William Maxwell

     To eight-year old Bunny Morison, his mother is an angelic comforter in whose absence nothing is real or alive.  To his older brother, Robert, his mother is someone he must protect, especially since the deadly, influenza epidemic of 1918 is ravaging their small Midwestern town.  To James Morison, his wife, Elizabeth, is the center of a life that would disintegrate all too suddenly were she to disappear. 
   Through the eyes of these characters, William Maxwell creates a sensitive portrait of an American family and of the complex woman who is its emotional pillar.  Beautifully observed, deftly rendering the civilities and constraints of a vanished era, They Came Like Swallows measures the subterranean currents of love and need that run through all our lives.  The result confirms Maxwell's reputation as one of the finest writers we have.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Release date: Sep 23, 2009
• ISBN: 9780307491824

William Maxwell

William Maxwell was born in Lincoln, Illinois in 1908. He studied at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and after earning a master’s at Harvard, returned there to teach freshman composition before turning to writing. He published six novels, four collections of short fiction, an autobiographical memoir, a collection of literary essays and reviews, and two books for children. Maxwell served as a fiction editor at The New Yorker from 1936 to 1975. He received the Brandeis Creative Arts Award Medal and, for So Long, See You Tomorrow, the American Book Award and the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in 2000 at the age of ninety-one.

Reviews for They Came Like Swallows

[charlesboyd · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An engrossing novel about the inquisition and the evil Torquemada. All of the characters are brought to life as well as their wants and needs and the means they will go to achieve them, plenty to admire and plenty to root against. As I got this book for free and had not read the first book it took some time to sort out who's who. Start with the first book if you can.

[detailmuse · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This autobiographical novella about a family during the 1918 Influenza is narrated by three characters, two of whom made me misty. I was wow-ed by how each passage revealed so much subtext. I must read more by Maxwell.

[lethalmauve · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A poignant semi-autobiographical story set during the 1918 flu pandemic, They Came Like Swallows traverses the deliberate change in living as the first world war reaches an end and the H1N1 virus spreads. Through the story of the Morison family, the casualties of the pandemic don't rely on dying people denoted solely by numbers but the personal aftermath they leave. Much more to two siblings who come face to face with the threat and eventual ambush of mortality. What makes this utterly unfortunate is how they don't get along at all. And some pinch of sibling envy and selfishness keep them far apart. Although the pandemic itself persists to be secondary with the complicated family dynamic hampered by gender roles and their complications at the centre, the response of the people is glaringly similar to current responses with the COVID19 pandemic. Indeed, a minor character disagrees with the closure of religious establishments because no way is the virus going to spread in an hour eucharistic celebration. And why will God let people die in his house? Another passing thought to consider is the skewed understanding of children about the pandemic. One kid slightly celebrates the school closures. Yet, They Came Like Swallows is essentially a novel about grief; the struggle to hold it together. The ultimate realisation that the beloved wouldn't come home again, comb their hair again nor even rest their hand on your shoulders again. A loss of innocence happens in parallel as well. And Maxwell writes in pulses of striking imagery and emotional bleakness. Every paragraph is saturated with delicate melancholy and bittersweet sentiments. The departed is perceived through others without really having a voice in the novel; a tearful set of memories in-transit that ceaselessly ripples across the absence they leave.I am only rating this a tad lower than I should because it's too depressing for the current circumstances. To read a story about the pandemic while experiencing it in real-time is tacit masochism it seems.

[bookconcierge · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

3.5 stars. Our book club had an interesting discussion of the complex book, which at first glance we expected to be similar to our previous month’s read ([Crow Lake]), but which was really very different. We talked about whether the age in which it was written (and about which it was written) was partly the cause, or whether it was the author’s gender. (We found [Crow Lake], written by a woman, more engaging.) We thought Maxwell’s own history of having lost his mother at a young age affected how closely he could get to these characters; he seemed to be holding them at arm’s length. Particularly interesting is that the author manages to paint a portrait of the mother, yet gives her virtually no voice.

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Bunny is eight years old in the late 1930's, the war has ended and he and his family live in a small Midwestern town, Bunny is our narrator for the first part of this novel. This is not really a coming of age novel, though it does include two young children. The Spanish Flu is rearing its ugly head and causing devastation in many, many places, people are being told to stay home. This is not a novel about the Spanish Flu either, though it does play a significant part of this story. This is the story of a family, could be any family, middle class, nice house, a few tragedies in their past such as their son Robert's accident, just trying to get by day by day. It has one of the best viewpoints, narrated by Bunny, of a young sons love for his mother. IT was wonderful to read and really made me remember my five sons when they were this age and I was their whole world. Anyway all eventually grow up. Robert, who narrates the second section, is 13, and his viewpoints of the family is a little different, not quite young, not quite grown-up. A quiet novel about a normal family that will have to deal with more than they ever thought they would, one that will change them all. I love this author, this is the second book I have read by him and intend getting my hands on more. He has such a subtle, poignant just natural way of telling a story. No big scenes meant to shock just novels about lives lived, normal people dealing with extraordinary events, just so incredibly real.

[timbazzett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Words fail me when it comes to describing this exquisitely rendered little novel first published over seventy years ago. Two boys, eight and thirteen, lose a mother; a husband a wife, sisters a sister. This is perhaps the most delicately described story of pain, loss and relationships I have encountered in many years. The sense of time and place, of a small town in Illinois in 1918, the year of the horrific Spanish influenza epidemic, is so real you can lose yourself as if the ensuing seventy-plus years had never happened. Like Maxwell's other book I have reviewed here, The Folded Leaf, this book - They Came Like Swallows - is simply beautiful. A masterpiece.

[melopher_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Rarely, if ever, have I read such an intimate and honest portrayal of a person's real self. It is normal, commonplace even, to read of people's actions and doings. It is fairly typical to read a story of a person as perceived through another persons eyes. I've often read a book that shows what a person thinks of themselves. But to hear the inner workings of ones self, the feelings and thoughts and reactions that happen without our permission or perhaps without even our conscious knowledge, and in such a matter of fact way, is moving. This is the part of a person that cries out to be loved and accepted--just as they are. This is the part of a person that is rather unexplainable. Yet William Maxwell has done it. Beautifully.

[bobbieharv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The trouble with William Maxwell is that his writing ruins you for all other books. It is perfect, like a jewel. A piercing story circling around the central character of Elizabeth, the mother of a family, and how each member reacts to her death from the 1918 spanish flu.