So Long See You Tomorow

 Fiction by William Maxwell

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1921 Lloyd Wilson is shot and killed outside his barn before he has a chance to milk the cows. This happens on page one of this short novel, and the rest of the book is mostly about why the murder happened.

The story is told in a strange way; the narrator is a boy in town who befriends the son of the murderer. The identity of the killer is never in doubt; this book is in no way a mystery. It's more about a person trying to come to terms with the past and reconcile with his own regrets.

This novel was well written, short but dense. Still, I thought the story could have been told in a less convoluted way and it might have been more easily understood. This is obviously a Smart Person Book,** and the goal with this type of writing is often to make the meaning of the text so difficult that only Smart People can understand. Therefore obfuscation is probably the author's goal, but it makes for less enjoyable reading in my opinion. 

So this book was pretty good but not great.

I also read by this author: They Came Like Swallows

**For explanation of The Smart Person Book, see Imagine Me Gone. In contrast, the last book I read (See Empire Falls) actually won a Pulitzer, but it was much more readable and still had a lot of depth. So we conclude that a Smart Person Book doesn't require these annoying affectations, but the more pretentious of authors just believes that it does.