2 days ago
Recollections may vary in the best Retros out now: SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW, THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA by Rumer Godden, DUEL DUET by Graham Greene
SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell (Vintage £9.99, 176pp)
Based on real events of his 1920s childhood in rural Illinois, including his mother's early death, Maxwell voices an elderly narrator looking back on the tragic story of his friend Cletus Smith.
Cletus's mother, Fern, had an affair with neighbouring farmer Lloyd Wilson, her husband Clarence's best friend, and they divorce. Driven to despair, Clarence shoots Lloyd dead before killing himself and Fern moves to Chicago with her son.
Later, in Chicago, the boys meet in a school corridor and say nothing – causing a lifetime of regret for the narrator. But in retelling, he finds truth may be different from memory, and his search for forgiveness is fruitless. Extraordinary.
THE BATTLE OF THE VILLA FIORITA by Rumer Godden (Virago £9.99, 304pp)
When charismatic film director Rob arrives in their village, Fanny realises how suffocated she is by her marriage to Army colonel Darrell and raising their three children. So begins a passionate affair that ends in divorce and she and Rob flee to the beautiful Villa Fiorita, near Lake Garda.
But devastated youngest child, Caddie, 11, travels with brother Hugh, 14, to the villa to bring their mother home – a mission complicated by the arrival of Rob's spoilt daughter and a boat accident.
Descriptions of the Italian setting are gorgeous but the real strength is in the childlike perspective that cannot see Fanny's rekindled joy or the conflicting loyalties that dictate the ending.
DUEL DUET by Graham Greene (Vintage Classics £18.99, 400pp)
This ingenious volume of paired stories is a wonderful introduction to the short fiction of Graham Greene.
Selected by novelist Yiyun Li, she creates either contrast (duel) or connection (duet) which sheds a new perspective on themes of conscience, crime, loneliness and fear.
The twin children of The End Of The Party, holding hands in the dark to calm one's fear, sit alongside The Case For The Defence where an identical brother can save his sibling in a court case.
The past and the future link The Innocent and The Destructors, and Cheap In August and The Moment of Truth both convey the power of human compassion in the face of impending death. A master at work.
