Reuben is a small man who, for little reward, helps people in big trouble. It is when he takes on Kewansa to try and get her child back from a man who has murdered a white man just to see what it was like, that his world starts to fall apart.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Reuben, the gnomish character at the center of Wideman's (Hurry Home) latest novel, at first appears a writer's indulgence, repugnant on the outside, wise on the inside. An attorney operating from a beat-up ghetto trailer, he gives advice and, he says, can take care of things at the Mecca of legal officialdom, "Downtown," at no cost. But like its title characer, PEN-Faulkner Award-winner Wideman's novel should not be mistaken after a quick glance. Bringing his fiction back to Homewood, the setting of much of his work, Wideman has done a masterful job of character portrayal, not only in creating the gentle attorney but also with his clients Kwansa, in search of the son snatched by her estranged lover, and Wally, whose fantasy of murder involves airplane flights everywhere and an assassination near the marble-topped sinks of a Chicago bathroom. Employing a graceful, free-flowing, almost Joycean style, Wideman shows how the minds of his characters form connections and how their lives are played out as in a dream. Of special note are Reuben's wonderful musings on Eadweard Muybridge, the Victorian scientist who used photography to study motion in men and animals. This novel confirms the author's reputation as an important American writer.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Reuben is a hump-backed lawyer offering quasi-legal aid from his abandoned trailer. Through his voice and those of his clientssuch as Kwansa, who fights to keep her child; Wally, a jaded basketball recruiter; and the enfeebled Clement, a young man living on the streetwe learn what it is to be black and defenseless, to watch white students "smart enough to be born a color they could change if they chose" playing frisbee. For blacks like Reuben no degree of cultural accommodation is enough; he concludes, Why accommodate? The narrative is not easy to follow, but it leaves a chilling message: "All black men have a Philadelphia. Even if you escape it, you leave something else behind. Part of you. A brother trapped there forever." Peter Bricklebank, City Coll., CUNY
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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More About the Author
JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN is the author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, and most recently the story collection God's Gym. He is the recipient of two PEN/ Faulkner Awards and has been nominated for the National Book Award. He teaches at Brown University.
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