17. So Long, See You Tomorrow by William Maxwell

One winter morning, shortly before daybreak, tenant farmer Lloyd Wilson is shot and killed by his neighbor and best friend, Clarence Smith. Set in the 1920s in rural Illinois, this tragic tale is narrated by a man who fifty years later is looking back at his friendship with Cletus Smith, the murderer’s oldest son. While remembering their painful childhoods – the narrator lost his mother to pneumonia in 1918 and Cletus lost his father when he committed suicide after killing Lloyd Wilson – the narrator also focuses on the growing friendship between the Wilsons and Smiths. When Clarence and Fern Smith move into the area, Lloyd Wilson is the first to greet them and help them move in. After helping on their farm over the months, Lloyd finds himself slowly becoming attracted to Fern, and she soon begins an affair with him. The four adults begin a slow descent into tragedy, with everyone’s lives soon destroyed.

This is a small, simply and beautifully written book of a rural tragedy. Maxwell originally published this in its entirety in The New Yorker, where he was the fiction editor for many years. The sparse farmland setting is a perfect backdrop to this heartbreaking work.