Customer Reviews

Two Cities: A Love Story

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John Edgar Wideman's incredible book two cities makes an exceptional use of language to deal with trauma and perspective. This is one of the most touching love stories I've ever read, mostly because of the way wideman seamlessly shifts perspective from one lover to the other, a choice which makes the two characters bleed into each other. As anyone who's ever been in love knows, sometimes you blend together so well its hard to tell where one person ends and the other begins. On top of that Wideman takes on the limitations of art in decpicting the depth and complexity of human feeling, ironic in a book that is so brimming with passion and sentiment.

Wideman again demonstrates his amazing facility with language and voicing, with a slender story that nevertheless gives rise to a vast array of emotional shadings and expressive nuances. However, much as with Philadelphia Fire (1990), Wideman doesn't seem interested in sustaining his bravura beginning. By the end of the book, the riffs have become repetitive and desultory, and the book dribbles to an unconvincing end. It's deeply disappointing, but only because the first third is so riveting. His treatment of the 1985 MOVE bombing is not as polemical or negative as Richard Bernstein's Times review would have it--if anything, Wideman blurs many of the details of that story, and those not familiar with the actual history may be confused.

I found this book a bit depressing in its bleak depiction of urban life for African-Americans, particularly those in violent inner city neighborhoods. I might merely take this as a sign that it was an effective book, except that it does not explain the causes of all the youth violence it depicts. And it is often hard to determine who is speaking, since the main voice changes within chapters and even within chapter sections. I often found it hard to follow the shifts in voice and time, not to mention place, as it is not clear when we are in Phili and when we are in Pittsburgh.

the book SUCKKKEDDDDD ma