My Mentor

Publishers Weekly

The literary gods must have smiled on future New Yorker writer Wilkinson (Violent Act), for he lived the dream of aspiring writers everywhere: to have for decades the ear (and eye) of a giant, the late William Maxwell, acclaimed novelist and legendary New Yorker editor. Wilkinson became a part of the aging Maxwell's life at the tender age of 24, introduced by his father, who had befriended his longtime neighbor. Not only did Wilkinson learn the craft, but embedded in Maxwell's simple, irrefutable lessons were important life philosophies, and Wilkinson came to see Maxwell in profound and paternal terms, until his death in the summer of 2000, at 91. This is a brief but heartfelt book, the prose unadorned, the structure loose yet only occasionally meandering. While Maxwell's writing periodically overshadows his mentee's, Wilkinson delivers several poignant, even Maxwellesque, moments, as when noting his mentor's physical deterioration: "his wrist hardly filled his shirt cuff any longer." Aside from Maxwell's early life and writings, Wilkinson provides glimpses into a bygone era at the New Yorker, the significant personalities, the office idiosyncrasies and Maxwell's ascendancy. The book's drawbacks: the unhappy relations between Wilkinson and his father remain vague, undercutting the significance of his tutelage, and Maxwell, at times, comes off as two-dimensional in his near-saintliness. The volume's main strength is Wilkinson's tender rendering of the lion-spirited Maxwell's almost sublime acceptance of his coming death, and the sadness and sense of unmooring felt by those around him. But for Wilkinson, Maxwell's presence was a once-in-a-lifetime gift. (Apr. 4) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In elegant and straightforward prose, Wilkinson (Midnights) assembles a portrait of William Maxwell, a writer and one of the last century's greatest editors of short fiction, best known for his work at The New Yorker. Maxwell was Wilkinson's writing mentor from the time he decided to become a writer until the end of Maxwell's life. Tracing the 25-year relationship between the emerging writer and the well-established literary master, Wilkinson reflects on the nature of his teacher's private, social, and public life. Using an intimate tone, he balances the perceived "flinty" nature and privacy of the enterprising individual against the social and professional decorum of a 20th-century literary/publishing figure's life. In a book that is part biography, part memoir, and part essay, Wilkinson sheds much light on the human capacity for sympathy, a mature relationship to self-interest, and the enterprise of writing. Highly recommended. Scott Hightower, Fordham Univ., New York Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Booknews

At age 24, when Wilkinson embarked on what has become a successful career as a writer, he was offered help from family friend Maxwell (1908-2000), writer and editor at . Here he combines biography, memoir, and essay to convey their close relationship. He includes no bibliography or index. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Kirkus Reviews

A lovely tribute to novelist and New Yorker editor William Maxwell (1908-2000), who was for many years a mentor to Wilkinson (A Violent Act, 1993, etc.), as well as a neighbor, a father figure, and a friend. "I derived my identity from Maxwell," states Wilkinson, though he admits later that he also was shaped by his father, a man of many foibles with whom he failed to make the elementary connection that he had with Maxwell. There is a wonderful clear-headedness here, despite all the emotions swarming about. The older man would have appreciated Wilkinson's uncluttered exposition of their relationship, for Maxwell was a writer of enormous elegance in work charged with feeling: "A writer should hold nothing back. Everything you have is never more than enough for the purpose at hand," he believed. He was also a skillful editor: Wilkinson depicts Maxwell bringing imagination, receptivity, and sympathy, as well as intimacy with the technical possibilities, to the job of "understanding what a writer is trying to say and helping him say it if he needs the help." Employing long quotes, Wilkinson draws a noble portrait of Maxwell and his wife, Emmy. He creates an enduring testimony to their long friendship, down to the last days when his affection for Maxwell was "worn like a garment over a sadness that was part loneliness and part despair and anger at being deprived of the one man I loved." The element of catharsis is never gratuitous, but used to further the reader's appreciation of Maxwell and of a relationship between two men that rings of Maxwell's words: "You don't thank people for being your friend, you thank God for your good fortune in having them as a friend." Wilkinson learned well fromhis mentor and brings that emotive, sympathetic bearing, beautiful and melancholy, with great immediacy to this homage.