So long, see you tomorrow

by William Maxwell · 1980

On a cold winter morning in 1920s rural Illinois, a gunshot shatters the fragile bond between two lonely teenagers—one a privileged but neglected boy, the other a troubled farmhand named Cletus. The murder of Lloyd Wilson, the father of one boy’s friend, tears their friendship apart and leaves a lingering mystery. Fifty years later, the surviving boy, now an adult, returns to the farm to piece together the events that led to that fatal shot. As he sifts through memory, rumor, and his own unreliable recollections, he confronts the tangled histories of jealousy, family rivalry, and the weight of secrets that have haunted him all his life. William Maxwell’s lyrical, quietly devastating novel explores how the past exerts a relentless gravity, shaping identity and demanding redemption, while revealing the tender, often painful, truths of youth, loss, and the enduring quest for forgiveness.