Adiós, Hasta Mañana

In a small town in Illinois, two families share many things. They share so many, in fact, that jealousy eventually leads to a murder. The crime leaves the town shaken and puts an end to the friendship between two solitary boys: the narrator—a boy who has recently lost his mother—and Cletus, the murderer’s son. This rupture wounds the narrator, but it won’t be until almost 50 years later that he will realize just how much it has affected him, forcing him to revisit those days, to revisit his friendship with Cletus and the events leading up to the murder. The mysterious forces that make us reexamine our past are the focus of this novel written by Maxwell based on his own childhood memories, a novel which is considered his best work and won him the American Book Award in 1980. En un pequeño pueblo del estado de Illinois, dos familias comparten muchas cosas. Comparten  tantas, de hecho, que los celos llevan finalmente a un asesinato. El crimen sacude a la comunidad y rompe la amistad que unía a dos niños solitarios: el narrador de la novela—un chico que recientemente ha perdido a su madre—y Cletus, el hijo del homicida. Al narrador esa ruptura le afectará, pero no será hasta casi cincuenta años más tarde cuando se dé cuenta de cuánto le ha marcado y vuelva sobre aquellos hechos: sobre su amistad con Cletus y sobre los acontecimientos que precedieron al asesinato. Maxwell explora las misteriosas fuerzas que nos obligan a examinar nuestro pasado en esta novela construida a partir de sus recuerdos juveniles, la cual está considerada como su mejor obra y le ganó el American Book Award en 1980.