Maxwell, William: So Long, See You Tomorrow

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So Long, See You Tomorrow is a morose little book that describes the dissolution of two families--neighboring tenant farmers in the rural Illinois of the 1920s--and the murder in which their shared misery culminates. The story, half remembered and half reconstructed, is narrated by an old man who was in his youth an acquaintance of the murderer's son.

The story, told in plain, unremarkable prose, hosts more than its share of unhappiness--dead mothers and adultery and neglected children torn from one or another parent. There is also canine unhappiness, the imagined wretchedness of an imagined dog, whose loyalty and service is repaid with beatings and abandonment.

So Long, See You Tomorrow has the feel of a high school English class must-read. That is to say, it is undoubtedly good literature, but it is not good reading.