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Ancestors: A Family History
The National Book Award-winning author of So Long, See You Tomorrow offers an astonishing evocation of a vanished world, as he retraces, branch by branch, the history of his family, taking readers into the lives of settlers, itinerant preachers, and small businessmen, examining the way they saw their world and how they imagined the world to come.
324 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
13 people are currently reading
186 people want to read
About the author
William Maxwell
120 books362 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
William Keepers Maxwell Jr. was an American novelist, and fiction editor at the New Yorker. He studied at the University of Illinois and Harvard University. Maxwell wrote six highly acclaimed novels, a number of short stories and essays, children's stories, and a memoir, Ancestors (1972). His award-winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has recurring themes of childhood, family, loss and lives changed quietly and irreparably. Much of his work is autobiographical, particularly concerning the loss of his mother when he was 10 years old growing up in the rural Midwest of America and the house where he lived at the time, which he referred to as the "Wunderkammer" or "Chamber of Wonders". He wrote of his loss "It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away." Since his death in 2000 several works of biography have appeared, including A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations (W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell by Alec Wilkinson (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002), and William Maxwell: A Literary Life by Barbara Burkhardt (University of Illinois Press, 2005). In 2008 the Library of America published the first of two collections of William Maxwell, Early Novels and Stories, Christopher Carduff editor. His collected edition of William Maxwell's fiction, published to mark the writer's centenary, was completed by a second volume, Later Novels and Stories in the fall of 2008.'
William Keepers Maxwell Jr. was an American novelist, and fiction editor at the New Yorker. He studied at the University of Illinois and Harvard University. Maxwell wrote six highly acclaimed novels, a number of short stories and essays, children's stories, and a memoir, Ancestors (1972). His award-winning fiction, which is increasingly seen as some of the most important of the 20th Century, has recurring themes of childhood, family, loss and lives changed quietly and irreparably. Much of his work is autobiographical, particularly concerning the loss of his mother when he was 10 years old growing up in the rural Midwest of America and the house where he lived at the time, which he referred to as the "Wunderkammer" or "Chamber of Wonders". He wrote of his loss "It happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it... the beautiful, imaginative, protected world of my childhood swept away." Since his death in 2000 several works of biography have appeared, including A William Maxwell Portrait: Memories and Appreciations (W. W. Norton & Co., 2004), My Mentor: A Young Man's Friendship with William Maxwell by Alec Wilkinson (Houghton-Mifflin, 2002), and William Maxwell: A Literary Life by Barbara Burkhardt (University of Illinois Press, 2005). In 2008 the Library of America published the first of two collections of William Maxwell, Early Novels and Stories, Christopher Carduff editor. His collected edition of William Maxwell's fiction, published to mark the writer's centenary, was completed by a second volume, Later Novels and Stories in the fall of 2008.'
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
August 20, 2023
William Maxwell quotes:
“I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living.”
“A little remembering is all right but too much is a disease I am terribly prone to.”
“Reading is rapture (or if it isn’t, I put the book down meaning to go on with it later, and escape out the side door).”
*******
Jonathan Yardley, in his review of Ancestors (1971) in the New York Times, wrote that:
An example of his invention is when he describes his grandfather’s six hundred miles journey, much of it on the National Road from Maryland to Illinois. Since there was no written record of the journey or any way of knowing for sure what his grandfather encountered, he called on his imagination to paint a picture that allows the readers to see for themselves what might have happened:
“With Ancestors,” Maxwell wrote, “I thought I was writing an account of my Campbellite [Disciples of Christ] forbears … but the high point of the book emotionally turned out to be the two chapters dealing with our family life before and after my mother’s death in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.”
He wrote that the death of his mother, when he was ten-years-old, marked the end of his childhood. He wrote elsewhere that “it happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it … the beautiful, imaginative world of my childhood swept away.
It is apparent that he never fully recovered from her death for it became a motivating force in four of his books, including two novels, They Came Like Swallows and The Folded Leaf.
******
And by the way –
William Maxwell (1908-2000), in addition to Ancestors, wrote six novels, short stories, essays, and children’s stories. He also spent almost four decades as the fiction editor for The New Yorker, which was partly the reason, he said, that he had not written more, but that it was also due to the fact that he was a slow writer. He was a slow writer, he said, because he wanted to try to “write sentences that won’t be like sand castles.”
He also said that he did not resent the time spent as an editor, because it gave him an opportunity to work with a “who’s who group of writers,” and, besides, he enjoyed the work immensely. The writers were quick to return the compliment. One of them, Eudora Welty, said that “for fiction writers, he was the headquarters.”
Thank you, Teresa.
“I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living.”
“A little remembering is all right but too much is a disease I am terribly prone to.”
“Reading is rapture (or if it isn’t, I put the book down meaning to go on with it later, and escape out the side door).”
*******
Jonathan Yardley, in his review of Ancestors (1971) in the New York Times, wrote that:
William Maxwell, a novelist venturing for the first time outside his field, had not deserted it as much as one might think …. [H]is uncommon family history is an exploration of the past in which the novelist’s invention figures as large as the historian’s research. If in its meditative rambles the book at times drifts slightly out of focus, it is notable for its quiet humor, affectionate tone and, most of all, its sharp vision of another America.
An example of his invention is when he describes his grandfather’s six hundred miles journey, much of it on the National Road from Maryland to Illinois. Since there was no written record of the journey or any way of knowing for sure what his grandfather encountered, he called on his imagination to paint a picture that allows the readers to see for themselves what might have happened:
The National Road was used by a steady stream of two-wheeled carts, Conestoga wagons, farm wagons, men on horseback, men on foot, men driving cattle, hogs, horses and mules. Now choking on clouds of dust, now with his new shoes caked with mud, my grandfather moved among them.
“With Ancestors,” Maxwell wrote, “I thought I was writing an account of my Campbellite [Disciples of Christ] forbears … but the high point of the book emotionally turned out to be the two chapters dealing with our family life before and after my mother’s death in the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918.”
He wrote that the death of his mother, when he was ten-years-old, marked the end of his childhood. He wrote elsewhere that “it happened too suddenly, with no warning, and we none of us could believe it or bear it … the beautiful, imaginative world of my childhood swept away.
It is apparent that he never fully recovered from her death for it became a motivating force in four of his books, including two novels, They Came Like Swallows and The Folded Leaf.
******
And by the way –
William Maxwell (1908-2000), in addition to Ancestors, wrote six novels, short stories, essays, and children’s stories. He also spent almost four decades as the fiction editor for The New Yorker, which was partly the reason, he said, that he had not written more, but that it was also due to the fact that he was a slow writer. He was a slow writer, he said, because he wanted to try to “write sentences that won’t be like sand castles.”
He also said that he did not resent the time spent as an editor, because it gave him an opportunity to work with a “who’s who group of writers,” and, besides, he enjoyed the work immensely. The writers were quick to return the compliment. One of them, Eudora Welty, said that “for fiction writers, he was the headquarters.”
Thank you, Teresa.
March 25, 2020
This book is subtitled “A Family History” and at the point when Maxwell is reminiscing of Grandmother Maxwell, I was reminded of E.M. Forster’s Marianne Thornton, which is subtitled "A domestic biography." I then remembered I’d read of Maxwell and Welty discussing the Forster in their letters in What There Is to Say We Have Said: The Correspondence of Eudora Welty and William Maxwell and went back to find this from Maxwell after he’d read the Forster:
(page 99)
I have left out Forster’s “single devastatingly honest sentence,” only wanting to note there is a comparable honest sentence of Maxwell’s near the end of his book, though I don’t think Maxwell (or Forster) was capable of writing a dishonest one.
I described Forster’s biography of his great-aunt as being written in “warm, respectful, intelligent, simple prose” and that applies to Maxwell's ‘family history’ as well. You may learn more than you want to know about his ancestors —though it’s a quite fascinating story starting in the 18th-century— but if you've read Maxwell's fiction, you’ll recognize family incidents (his aunt severely burning her hands); their neighbors (Dr. Donald and the Dyers); and even direct quotations that made their way into his stories (“I don’t care what the Presbyterians say, He went down under the water and He came up out of the water!”).
I love the cover because it was done by Maxwell’s daughter, Brookie Maxwell, thus extending “Ancestors” into descendants.
I finished the Forster book …with an extra special delight in his own reminiscences, especially that page about his friendship with the childish maid. It seemed to me that, with his usual characteristicness he had set about rectifying a residuum of injustice--There was more to be said in favor of those terrible people in Howard's [sic] End than it suited the purposes of that novel to say. But having taken a whole book to see that justice was paid them, he inserted a single devastatingly honest sentence: ... I was left, as I have so often been left by him before, with my mouth open and my hands in my lap, deeply deeply amazed.
(page 99)
I have left out Forster’s “single devastatingly honest sentence,” only wanting to note there is a comparable honest sentence of Maxwell’s near the end of his book, though I don’t think Maxwell (or Forster) was capable of writing a dishonest one.
I described Forster’s biography of his great-aunt as being written in “warm, respectful, intelligent, simple prose” and that applies to Maxwell's ‘family history’ as well. You may learn more than you want to know about his ancestors —though it’s a quite fascinating story starting in the 18th-century— but if you've read Maxwell's fiction, you’ll recognize family incidents (his aunt severely burning her hands); their neighbors (Dr. Donald and the Dyers); and even direct quotations that made their way into his stories (“I don’t care what the Presbyterians say, He went down under the water and He came up out of the water!”).
I love the cover because it was done by Maxwell’s daughter, Brookie Maxwell, thus extending “Ancestors” into descendants.
June 21, 2019
The first half of this book lost me with the history of his family's involvement with the rise of the Christian Church movement. The second half, about his childhood and immediate relatives, was much more interesting and beautifully written. Many of the things he related I had already read in his fiction, so They Came Like Swallows and So Long, See You Tomorrow were mostly straight memory with a few fictional elements thrown in. Can't go higher than 3 stars because of having to slog through the first part of the book, which probably has a lot to do with my dislike of religious movements and men who set themselves up as saviors who must be followed.
August 25, 2015
Exquisite. Haunting. So immensely true. We are connected by gossamer strands. We must be so careful of one another. Each reading of this book is more touching. There are things that only age can understand...
October 8, 2013
William Maxwell, novelist and long-time fiction editor for the New Yorker, shared the history of his ancestors and his immediate family’s story in this lovely work. From itinerant preachers traveling the American wilderness to businessmen and housewives in small towns on the Illinois plains, the Englands, Maxwells, Blinns and others are brought to life in beautiful prose and perfect detail. (It took me a long time to read this book because I was so often rereading sentences to take in a particular turn of phrase.)
July 19, 2020
Reading William Maxwell is like slipping into a warm bath, at once relaxing and restorative. “Ancestors,” while slow in the beginning, guides the reader into an intimate relationship with the author. We are made privy to the tender memories of his formative years and those who populated his childhood. It is an achingly beautiful narrative.
June 4, 2011
This may not be a book for everyone - it really does detail his family history - I just found it compelling and very real ...I really enjoyed it.
September 9, 2012
The first half was difficult to get through. I didn't care about the religious twists and turns his ancestors made. The second half, about his own memories was a joy to read.
July 7, 2015
This book is not perfect, but there is enough to make it essential. I have never read anything more beautiful than chapter 17.
April 23, 2019
In this book, William Maxwell brings out the lives of the people who inhabited his family tree. He brings out the influences on the family as they left Scotland and over several generations made their way to Lincoln, IL. The growth of the Christian Church denomination had a large influence on his family and that church history is intertwined with that of his grandparents and grandparents, but its influence lessened as the story gets closer to his generation. The history of Lincoln, IL becomes intertwined with the family history as the story gets closer to William Maxwell's own life, and these are probably the most interesting chapters. The book reads much more like a novel than a family history. It is nice to know that Maxwell's story telling abilities are just as strong in this work of non-fiction as they are in his novels.
August 12, 2016
With age comes, almost universally, the desire to lay a straight narrative that properly aligns the past, to re-tell the story of family so that our individual moment in life is connected, a thread that suitably connects us to our past and to whatever future comes when we pass. William Maxwell's ANCESTORS does this work. It's a lovely and thought-provoking work. Yes, there are some slow sections, particularly the deep detail on the family religious roots. But Maxwell weaves into the genealogical facts his own wry humor, tender musings, and gentle imaginings. I enjoyed it a great deal.
Notable quotes:
"One can grieve over all the water that has ever flowed over the dam."
Regarding an early Scottish Maxwell ancestor: "If the Lowland farmer spoke with an uncouth accent, dressed in rags, lived in a miserable hovel, and fed on the same grain he fed his animals, it was not because he was a savage but because the relentless marauding of the English left him with very little choice. As for why he didn't simply cut his throat, the answer is that he was a Presbyterian and did not expect much in the way of earthly happiness."
Speculation that sounds a great deal like the current theory of epigenetics: "The music of Beethoven's Fidelio always rises up in my mind when I think of that meeting in the forest, and my throat constricts with an emotion that is, I'm afraid, purely factitious--unless feelings are more a part of our physical inheritance than is commonly believed, in which case it is Mary Edie's joy, unquenchable, passed on, and then passed on again, generation after generation, along with the color of eyes and the shape of hands and characteristic habits of mind and temperament."
Regarding the questions that come up, too late: "You cannot go to the cemetery and ask to be enlightened on matters of this kind, though it would ease my mind considerably if you could."
Describing a human tendency that is sadly common, and will likely always be: "At that period, rising in the world meant giving up working with your hands in favor of work in a store or an office. The people who lived in town had made it, and turned their backs socially on those who had not but were still growing corn and wheat out there in the country. What seemed like an impassable gulf was only the prejudice of a single generation, which refused to remember its own not very remote past."
This description of his mother's family brought me to tears--so much of it sounds like my own mother, and is a brilliant way to convey his observations of his people: "The values and assumptions of that household I took in without knowing when or how it happened, and I have them to this day: The pleasure in sharing pleasure. The belief that is is only proper to help lame dogs to get over stiles and young men to put one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. An impatient disregard for small sums of money. The belief that it is a sin against Nature to put sugar in one's tea. The preference for being home over being anywhere else. The belief that generous impulses should be acted on, whether you can afford to do this or not. The trust in premonitions and the knowledge of what is in wrapped packages. The willingness to go to any amount of trouble to make yourself comfortable. The tendency to take refuge in absolutes. The belief that you don't have to apologize for tears; that consoling words should never be withheld; that what somebody wants very much they should, if possible, have."
Notable quotes:
"One can grieve over all the water that has ever flowed over the dam."
Regarding an early Scottish Maxwell ancestor: "If the Lowland farmer spoke with an uncouth accent, dressed in rags, lived in a miserable hovel, and fed on the same grain he fed his animals, it was not because he was a savage but because the relentless marauding of the English left him with very little choice. As for why he didn't simply cut his throat, the answer is that he was a Presbyterian and did not expect much in the way of earthly happiness."
Speculation that sounds a great deal like the current theory of epigenetics: "The music of Beethoven's Fidelio always rises up in my mind when I think of that meeting in the forest, and my throat constricts with an emotion that is, I'm afraid, purely factitious--unless feelings are more a part of our physical inheritance than is commonly believed, in which case it is Mary Edie's joy, unquenchable, passed on, and then passed on again, generation after generation, along with the color of eyes and the shape of hands and characteristic habits of mind and temperament."
Regarding the questions that come up, too late: "You cannot go to the cemetery and ask to be enlightened on matters of this kind, though it would ease my mind considerably if you could."
Describing a human tendency that is sadly common, and will likely always be: "At that period, rising in the world meant giving up working with your hands in favor of work in a store or an office. The people who lived in town had made it, and turned their backs socially on those who had not but were still growing corn and wheat out there in the country. What seemed like an impassable gulf was only the prejudice of a single generation, which refused to remember its own not very remote past."
This description of his mother's family brought me to tears--so much of it sounds like my own mother, and is a brilliant way to convey his observations of his people: "The values and assumptions of that household I took in without knowing when or how it happened, and I have them to this day: The pleasure in sharing pleasure. The belief that is is only proper to help lame dogs to get over stiles and young men to put one foot on the bottom rung of the ladder. An impatient disregard for small sums of money. The belief that it is a sin against Nature to put sugar in one's tea. The preference for being home over being anywhere else. The belief that generous impulses should be acted on, whether you can afford to do this or not. The trust in premonitions and the knowledge of what is in wrapped packages. The willingness to go to any amount of trouble to make yourself comfortable. The tendency to take refuge in absolutes. The belief that you don't have to apologize for tears; that consoling words should never be withheld; that what somebody wants very much they should, if possible, have."
Read
March 25, 2013Beautiful! Fans of his novels and stories will love this
October 2, 2021
As others have noted, the first half of this book is a bit dry, much more of a recitation of historical sources than storytelling. The second half where he is recounting scenes from his early life woven in with family stories and research becomes something else entirely—a reflection on family betrayals and disruptions, as well as on death and grief and memory and the evanescent nature of our lives and the history that does or doesn’t record them. I’m glad I read it, but there are few I’d recommend it to, as Maxwell left much fine fiction that’s probably more powerful. But for real Maxwell fans, it is worth a read.
July 31, 2024
LIke other books by William Maxwell, this is a book of a topic not inherently of my interest and yet, by the end of the book, I'm captivated with the characters and what they and the author (and I) have learned about life.
October 31, 2020
This memoir which was published in 1971 is of the family of the author who was born in 1908. His now old-fashioned prose is delightful.
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November 15, 2024Following his ancestors to Lincoln, Illinois
November 4, 2025
Maxwell is a fine writer and there parts of this memoir that were quite interesting, but the way he skipped back and forth in time and between branches of a large family made it hard to keep track.
July 30, 2011
Didn't work for me.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews