Fresh Air, Alec Wilkinson and William Maxwell

Writer Alec Wilkinson and an archive interview with William Maxwell on this edition of Fresh Air. Alec Wilkinson remembers his friend and mentor William Maxwell, who died Monday at the age of 91. Wilkinson is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and has been there since 1980. Maxwell was fiction editor of The New Yorker from 1936-1976 and worked with such authors as J.D. Salinger, John Cheever, John Updike, Eudora Welty and scores of others. Maxwell was the author of a number of novels, including Time Will Darken It, and So Long, See You Tomorrow, as well as several short story collections. In 1995 a collection of his stories was published in the book All The Days and Nights; listen to a rebroadcast of an interview with Maxwell from that year. John Updike has said Maxwell's voice is "one of the wisest in American fiction. It is, as well, one of the kindest." (Original Broadcast of Wilkinson interview, August 4, 2000; Original Broadcast Date for Maxwell interview March 29, 1995)