{"product_id":"they-came-like-swallows-9780679772576","title":"They Came Like Swallows","description":"\u003cp\u003e To eight-year old Bunny Morison, his mother is an angelic comforter in whose absence nothing is real or alive. To his older brother, Robert, his mother is someone he must protect, especially since the deadly, influenza epidemic of 1918 is ravaging their small Midwestern town. To James Morison, his wife, Elizabeth, is the center of a life that would disintegrate all too suddenly were she to disappear. \u003cbr\u003e Through the eyes of these characters, William Maxwell creates a sensitive portrait of an American family and of the complex woman who is its emotional pillar. Beautifully observed, deftly rendering the civilities and constraints of a vanished era, \u003ci\u003eThey Came Like Swallows\u003c\/i\u003e measures the subterranean currents of love and need that run through all our lives. The result confirms Maxwell's reputation as one of the finest writers we have.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e William Maxwell was born in 1908, in Lincoln, Illinois. When he was fourteen his family moved to Chicago and he continues his education there and at the University of Illinois. After a year of graduate work at Harvard he went back to Urbana and taught freshman composition, and then turned to writing. He has published six novels, three collections of literary essays and reviews, and a book for children. For forty years he was a fiction editor at \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker. \u003c\/i\u003eFrom 1969 to 1972 he was president of the National Institute of Arts and Letters, He received the Brandeis Creative Arts Award Medal and, for \u003ci\u003eSo Long, See You Tomorrow, \u003c\/i\u003e the American Book Award and the Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He died in 2000.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50543892267282,"sku":"9780679772576","price":10.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_e7ef8b9c-4b62-41c5-8140-1c8076358afe.jpg?v=1731515977","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/they-came-like-swallows-9780679772576","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}