John Edgar Wideman Books In Order
Book links take you to Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn money from qualifying purchases.Publication Order of Homewood Books
Sent for You Yesterday | (1981) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Hiding Place | (1981) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Damballah | (1984) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Standalone Novels
The Lynchers | (1973) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
A Glance Away | (1975) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Hurry Home | (1986) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Reuben | (1987) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Philadelphia Fire | (1990) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Cattle Killing | (1996) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Two Cities | (1997) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Fanon | (2008) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
Brothers and Keepers | (1984) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Fatheralong | (1994) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Conversations with John Edgar Wideman | (1998) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Chronicles of the Civil War | (1999) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Hoop Roots | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Island Martinique | (2003) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Writing to Save a Life | (2016) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Collections
Fever | (1989) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Stories of John Edgar Wideman | (1992) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
All Stories Are True | (1993) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
God's Gym | (2005) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Briefs | (2010) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
American Histories | (2018) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
You Made Me Love You | (2021) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Look For Me and I'll Be Gone | (2021) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Publication Order of Best American Short Stories Books
The Best Short Stories of 1915 | (1916) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1916 | (1916) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1917 | (1917) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1918 | (1918) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1919 | (1919) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1921 | (1921) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1922 | (1922) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1923 | (1923) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1924 | (1924) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1925 | (1925) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1926 | (1926) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1927 | (1927) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1928 | (1928) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1929 | (1929) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1930 | (1930) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1931 | (1931) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1932 | (1932) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1933 | (1933) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1934 | (1934) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1935 | (1935) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1936 | (1936) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1937 | (1937) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1938 | (1938) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1939 | (1939) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1940 | (1940) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories 1941 | (1941) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1942 | (1942) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1943 | (1943) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1944 | (1944) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1945 | (1945) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1946 | (1946) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1948 | (1948) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1949 | (1949) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1950 | (1950) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1951 | (1951) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1952 | (1952) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1953 | (1953) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1955 | (1955) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1957 | (1957) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1958 | (1958) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1959 | (1959) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1960 | (1960) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1961 | (1961) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1962 | (1962) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1963 | (1963) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1965 | (1965) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1966 | (1966) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1967 | (1967) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1968 | (1967) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories of 1969 | (1969) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1970 | (1970) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1971 | (1971) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1972 | (1972) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1973 | (1973) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1974 | (1974) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best of Best American Short Stories 1915-1950 | (1975) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1975 | (1975) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1976 | (1976) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1977 | (1977) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1978 | (1978) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1981 | (1981) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1984 | (1984) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1985 | (1985) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 1987 | (1987) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties | (1990) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2001 | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories 2002 | (2002) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best Short Stories of 1921, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Best American Short Stories1921 | (2007) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Anthology series. |
Publication Order of The O. Henry Prize Collection Books
Publication Order of Anthologies
Go the Way Your Blood Beats | (1996) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction | (1999) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
Prize Stories 2000: The O. Henry Awards | (2000) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
20 | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
My Soul Has Grown Deep | (2001) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
The O. Henry Prize Stories 2019 | (2019) | Hardcover Paperback Kindle |
John Edgar Wideman is a literary fiction author from the United States whose life was as dramatic as any of his novels known for their Faulknerian quality.
The author was born in 1941 in Washington DC but his family moved to the African American community of Homewood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was just one year old. This community would then be the setting for much of his fiction work.
In his teenage years, he went to one of the best secondary schools in Pittsburgh known as Peabody High School. It was here that it was discovered that he was not only good in sports but he was also a good student.
Soon enough, the University of Pennsylvania awarded him the Benjamin Franklin scholarship. At the university, he was the winner of the creative writing prize and was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa organization.
Edgar Wideman matched his scholarly achievements with athletic ones, as he successfully competed on the track and was a basketball forward player.
In 1963, John got his bachelor’s degree in English and went to New College of Oxford University to study Philosophy under a Rhodes scholarship. It was at Oxford University that John Edgar Wideman studied eighteenth-century narrative techniques.
In 1966, he moved back to the US where he earned a Kent Felklowsjhip at the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. Soon after that feat, he would become one of the first black-tenured professors at the University of Pennsylvania.
It was there that he completed his 1967 published “A Glance Away.” He followed that up with three critically acclaimed works that did not do so well commercially. According to the author, this was because he was still operating at apprentice levels.
It would not be until he published “Damballah,” a short story collection in 1981 that he grew into his learned, mature, and distinctively black style, which switches between the profane and the sublime a high literary mode, and an earthy vernacular.
He would make use of his style to spin untrue and true tales that accumulate and overlap into tangible characters and landscapes just like someone with a 3-D printer.
“Damballah” alongside “Hiding Place” and “Sent for You Yesterday” marked Edgar’s emergence as one of the best literary authors in the United States.
He has since made a reputation for penning stories that depict African American experiences in the cities in which they live.
After working as a director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Afro-American studies program for two years, John Edgar Wideman published his first novel that focused on interracial issues in 1973 which he titled “The Lynchers.”
Wideman would leave the University of Pennsylvania in 1975 and head to the University of Wyoming in the same capacity. Wideman subsequently taught at Brown University and the University of Massachusetts. He would also become the first author to receive the Faulkner/PEN award twice in 1990 and 1983.
Wideman is currently a University of Massachusetts English professor. He has over the years penned articles on the likes of Thelonius Monk, Malcolm X, Emmett Till, Spike Lee, Michael Jordan, Denzel Washington, and women’s professional basketball that have appeared in some prestigious publications.
His works have been featured in New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Emege, Vogue, and Esquire among many others.
Wieman currently makes his home in Amherst where he lives with his layer wife Judy. Jamila his daughter is a professional basketball player and Dan his son is a published author.
“Sent for You Yesterday” by John Edgar Wideman is a work set in the Homewood suburb of Philadelphia where the author grew up. This is probably why you can immediately tell that he gets into his element when writing about the residents and the locale.
The novel is populated by three generations of family and friends beginning with Doot the narrator. It reaches back to Freeda and John French his grandparents and focuses on Doot’s uncle Carl French, Carl’s best friend, and Carl’s on-and-off love Lucy Tate.
The experiences of the albino Brother Tate alongside Junbug his son are central to the work. It showcases some intriguing relationships as it relates to some interesting events over the course of the story.
Wideman has penned a work with lyrical quality, even as he tackles issues of friendship, family, and race in this blockbuster novel.
It is an evocative and dazzling milieu that ranges from the narcotized 1970s to the uninhibited and wild 1920s. The author shows his exceptional skills at establishing a symbolic and mythological link between plot and language, land and character.
John Edgar Wideman’s novel “Damballah” opens on a plantation and ends with the portrayal of some of the original residents of the African American suburb of Homewood.
Much of the novel explores the Wideman family through the lens of oral folktales. It makes for interesting narration as each of the characters narrates their own stories as they cover different aspects of the family over a given timeline.
It introduces a slave named Orion who accidentally exposed himself to the house mistress and was subsequently decapitated. There are also other characters such as John Frenchy who plays a significant role in the family and the legend in the gospel circuit in Reba Love Jackson.
It is an impressive collage of the stereotypical African American family that tells the history of Homewood. It was a Pennslyvania community that owed its founding to a runaway slave and went on to have its own share of tragedies, deaths, and births through the decades.
With impressive lyricism, the author sings of dead fathers, lost gods, basketball, the gospel, and of dead children in garbage cans. It is a celebration of people that when faced with a crisis, hold each other up with dignity, courage, and grace.
“Hiding Place” by John Edgar Wideman opens with a man laying dead on some nondescript lot. The only other person there is Tammy a black man who denies any involvement in the homicide.
However, the police will certainly shoot him first and ask questions later given that he is black. Given his predicament, He turns to his relatives the most prominent of which is Mother Bess.
She is a mean and crazy old lady that has been hardened by the streets of Homewood. Together Mother Bess and Tommy hide in fear and anger trapped in the same cycle that trapped the generations that came before them.
It is a brilliant portrait of the African American experience in America.