American Histories - by John Edgar Wideman (Paperback)

About the Book

"In this singular collection, John Edgar Wideman, the acclaimed author of Writing to Save a Life, blends the personal, historical, and political to invent complex, charged stories about love, death, struggle, and what we owe each other. With characters ranging from everyday Americans to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Nat Turner, American Histories is a journey through time, experience, and the soul of our country"--

Book Synopsis

"A powerful assemblage of short stories exploring late-in-life angst through personal myth, cultural memory, and riffs on an empire scorched by its own hubris" (O, The Oprah Magazine) from award-winning author John Edgar Wideman--his first collection in more than a decade.

"Race and its reverberations are at the core of this slim, powerful volume, a blend of fiction, memoir, and reimagined history, in which the boundaries between those forms are murky and ever shifting" (The Boston Globe). In this singular collection, John Edgar Wideman blends the personal, historical, and political to invent complex, charged stories about love, death, struggle, and what we owe each other. With characters ranging from everyday Americans to Jean-Michel Basquiat to Nat Turner, American Histories is a journey through time, experience, and the soul of our country.

In "JB & FD," Wideman reimagines conversations between John Brown, the antislavery crusader, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and orator--conversations that produce a fantastical, rich correspondence that spans years and ideologies. "Maps and Ledgers" eavesdrops on a brother and sister today as they ponder their father's killing of another man. "Williamsburg Bridge" sits inside a man sitting on a bridge who contemplates his life before he decides to jump. "My Dead" is a story about how the already-departed demand more time, more space in the lives of those who survive them.

American Histories is "an important addition to Wideman's body of writing and a remarkable demonstration of his ability to address social issues through a range of fictional forms and styles" (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). An extended meditation on family, history, and loss, American Histories weaves together historical fact, philosophical wisdom, and deeply personal vignettes. This is Wideman at his best--emotionally precise and intellectually stimulating--an extraordinary collection by a master.

Review Quotes

"A powerful assemblage of short stories exploring late-in-life angst through personal myth, cultural memory, and riffs on an empire scorched by its own hubris ... His prose, its twisting suntax, is a kind of stylish jazz of his own making."
--O Magazine

"John Edgar Wideman has established himself as one of the country's most formally inventive writers ... an important addition to Mr. Wideman's body of writing and a remarkable demonstration of his ability to address social issues through a range of fictional forms and styles."
--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"John Edgar Wideman's latest book feels like a coda to his impressive body of work. He deftly incorporates a range of black names from the 20th century -- Emmett Till, Jean-Michel Basquiat -- in his riffs, then plunges deeper into history."
--Seattle Times

"Linked by astringent wit, audacious invention, and a dry sensibility whose owner has for decades wrestled with what he describes as "the puzzle of how and why and where and who we come from." Wideman's recent work strides into the gap between fiction and nonfiction as a means of disclosing hard, painful, and necessary truths.
--Kirkus, starred review

"Race and its reverberations are at the core of this slim, powerful volume, a blend of fiction, memoir, and reimagined history, in which the boundaries between those forms are murky and ever shifting."
--Boston Globe

"Wideman . . . boldly subverts what a short story can be in this wonderful collection. . . . Each story feels new, challenging, and exhilarating, beguilingly combining American history with personal history."
--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Wideman's shape-shifting, lyrical narratives offer mesmerizing and challenging perspectives on the creative process and the black experience, decisively affirming his stature as a major voice in American literature."
--Booklist, starred review

"Wideman's 50-year writing career has won him countless awards, and the author proves his continued vitality, reimagining historical figures with vigor and soul."
--Entertainment Weekly

"With the scrupulous intelligence and meditative intensity that define all this author's work . . . . Mr. Wideman's explicit subject is racial injustice but his treatment of it quietly deepens into existential horror. . . . This, then, is not a book for the unwary. Mr. Wideman possesses a true and terrible vision of the tragic." -Wall Street Journal

"With the scrupulous intelligence and meditative intensity that define all this author's work . . . . Mr. Wideman's explicit subject is racial injustice but his treatment of it quietly deepens into existential horror. . . . This, then, is not a book for the unwary. Mr. Wideman possesses a true and terrible vision of the tragic."
--Wall Street Journal

About the Author

John Edgar Wideman's books include, among others, Languages of Home, Slaveroad, Look for Me and I'll Be Gone, You Made Me Love You, The Homewood Trilogy, American Histories, Writing to Save a Life, Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, Hoop Roots, and Sent for You Yesterday. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award twice and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and National Book Award. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. He divides his time between New York and France.