So Long, See You Tomorrow is a rare truth-telling fiction. Grave, moving, and wise, it presents a vision of life as a tragic order in which passion is fate, choice is illusion, and innocence and guilt have little meaning and no moral relation to suffering. There is no cure for this suffering, since its cause seems to be life, but there is an implied mitigation. This is the retrospective activity of the sympathetic imagination, which cannot change the facts of another's life, but can make their meaning present and in this way create a feeling of solidarity between oneself and others. This activity of the imagination is precious; it is not too much to call it the humanist's version of prayer. But it cannot make everything present, for some situations are so bad as to be unimaginable. (p. 39)

In the course of his narrative William Maxwell keeps coming...