The Stories of John Edgar Wideman

This work reprints PEN/Faulkner award winner Wideman’s collections Damballah (Avon, 1981) and Fever (LJ 11/1/89). Most of the stories are set in Homewood, the black section of Pittsburgh where Wideman grew up and which he has since turned into his own version of Yoknapatawpha County.

Damballah consists of 12 interrelated stories that trace successive generations of a fugitive slave’s family—the author’s own ancestors. Wideman presents the book as a series of letters to his brother Robby, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in prison. The two concluding sections further explore the Homewood theme, with retellings of old family tales and street-corner legends and with frequent meditations on the contrast between Robby’s fate and Wideman’s own success in the white world. The entire volume displays a novelistic unity unusual in short story collections. Recommended for most collections. —Edward B. St. John, Loyola Law Sch. Lib., Los Angeles