William Maxwell, author and New Yorker editor, dies

NEW YORK (AP) -- William Maxwell, the revered editor of such New Yorker writers as J.D. Salinger and John Cheever and himself an accomplished man of letters, died at his home Monday. He was 91.

Hired in 1937 by The New Yorker's Katharine White, a founding editor and the wife of E.B. White, Maxwell was on staff for 40 years and worked with some of the magazine's most celebrated authors, including Salinger, Cheever, John O'Hara, John Updike and Harold Brodkey.

In "About Town," a history of The New Yorker published this year, author Ben Yagoda noted that Maxwell's correspondence with writers "exudes a palpable empathy." For many, Maxwell was the ideal editor, a man of civilized temperament and compassionate rigor.

Cheever, with whom he had an especially close, intense relationship, once praised him for "the advice he gave me and the advice he didn't give me." Cheever and Brodkey were among those who dedicated books to Maxwell.

"As a writer I don't very much enjoy being edited. As an editor I tried to work so slightly on the manuscript that 10 years later the writer would read his story and not be aware that anybody was involved but him," Maxwell once commented.

"This involves listening and watching the writer's face for signs of dissatisfaction. Again, it is a simple matter of love."

In person, the slightly built Maxwell was the very image of the vintage New Yorker staffer: learned, but self-effacing; gracious, but not effusive; dignified, but not stuffy -- the kind of man who would laugh out loud at a Marx Brothers movie.

Maxwell's career as an author preceded his time at The New Yorker. His first novel, "Bright Center of Heaven," was published in 1934. Subsequent books included the story collections "Billie Dyer" and "Over by the River," and the 1980 novel, "So Long, See You Tomorrow," which won the American Book Award.

His works demonstrated what a sensitive man could do with a seemingly limited number of experiences. Maxwell's life hardly ranked with Hemingway's for manly adventure, but in his mind he endured conflicts as challenging as any bullfight.

The author was born Aug. 16, 1908, and lived his early years in Lincoln, Illinois, a quiet town complete with tree-shaded streets and a courthouse square.

This world seemed incapable of changing, but it did, with little warning. When Maxwell was 10, his mother became sick with the flu and died. His father remarried, sold the house and moved the family to Chicago. Again and again, the author relived those events in his books.

Maxwell's was the fiction of disruption. The seemingly peaceful settings -- a Midwestern town, Manhattan's Upper East Side, the French countryside -- are haunted by death, betrayal, a child's dreams. Even a damaged bicycle becomes a symbol for lost innocence, something that can never "be made shining and whole again."

He was the purest of writers, and remained so in interviews. Like Vladimir Nabokov, Maxwell preferred giving his answers in writing, tapping them out on an old electric typewriter, pausing to allow the reporter to read his response and patiently waiting for the next question.

In 1945, Maxwell married Emily Gilman Noyes, who died July 23. They had two daughters, Katharine and Emily.

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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