Subject: William Maxwell
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Wed Aug 02 2000 - 10:29:01 GMT
This morning, the British papers have given pride of place
in their obituaries to William Maxwell, sometime departmental
editor of the New Yorker, who has died at age 91.
Both the Times & Telegraph can be quite robust about even
the recently dead - but they are gently flattering to Maxwell.
They do mention, however, two occasions when his judgement
was not completely vindicated by subsequent events. He is said
to have tried to dissuade Salinger from publishing Zooey as being
'not our style of surrealism' (presumably the New Yorker's style.)
And - much more deplorable in my personal view - he rejected
Auden's marvellous 'September 1, 1939' when in charge of the poetry
section of the magazine.
He's described as a man of rather classy verbal reticence & great
personal grace. One detail I found touching was that he outlived
by his wife by no more than eight days - the wife he married in 1945.
I know his name has cropped up before on the list in connection
with his editorial work with Salinger & I'm sure some bananafish
must be able to offer more gen - in which I'd be very interested.
Scottie B.
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