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Look for me and I'll be gone : stories / John Edgar Wideman.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2021Copyright date: ©2021Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: ix, 318 pages ; 22 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781982148942
  • 1982148942
Other title:
  • Look for me and I will be gone : stories
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Art of story -- Colored angel Levine -- Last day -- Separation -- Till -- Arizona -- Whose teeth/whose story -- Sheppard -- Penn Station -- Death row -- Rwanda -- Ipso facto -- BTM -- George Floyd story -- Accused . . . -- Atlanta murders -- Someone to watch over me -- Jordan -- Lost and found -- Lost love letters--a Locke -- Another story.
Summary: Forty years after John Edgar Wideman's first book of stories, comes this stunning collection that is vital reading for anyone interested in the state of America today. Its subjects range from Michael Jordan to Emmett Till, from distrust of authority to everyday grief, from childhood memories to the final day in a prison cell. A boy stands alone in his grandmother's house, unable to enter the room in which his grandfather's coffin lies, afraid the dead man may speak, afraid he won't speak. Freddie Jackson's song 'You Are My Lady' plays on the car radio as a son is brought to a prison cell in Arizona. A narrator contemplates the Atlanta child murders from 1979. Never satisfied to simply tell a story, Wideman continues to push form, with stories within stories, sentences that rise like a jazz solo with every connecting clause, voices that reflect who he is and where he's from, and an exploration of time that entangles past and present. Whether historical or contemporary, intimate or expansive, the stories here represent a pioneering American writer whose innovation and imagination know no bounds.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction WIDEMAN, JOHN Available 33111010749212
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

*A Wall Street Journal Top 10 Best Book of the Year*

From John Edgar Wideman, a modern "master of language" ( The New York Times Book Review ), comes a stunning story collection that spans a range of topics from Michael Jordan to Emmett Till, from childhood memories to the final day in a prison cell.

In Look For Me and I'll Be Gone , his sixth collection of stories, John Edgar Wideman imbues with energy and life the concerns that have consistently infused his fiction and nonfiction. How does it feel to grow up in America, a nation that--despite knowing better, despite its own laws, despite experiencing for hundreds of years the deadly perils and heartbreak of racial division--encourages (sometimes unwittingly, but often on purpose) its citizens to see themselves as colored or white, as inferior or superior.

Never content merely to tell a story , Wideman seeks once again to create language that delivers passages like jazz solos, and virtuosic manipulations of time to entangle past and present. The story "Separation" begins with a boy afraid to stand alone beside his grandfather's coffin, then wends its way back and forth from Pittsburgh to ancient Sumer. "Atlanta Murders" starts with two chickens crossing a road and becomes a dark riff, contemplating "Evidence of Things Not Seen," James Baldwin's report on the 1979-1981 child murders in Atlanta, Georgia.

Comprised of fictions of the highest caliber and relevancy by a writer whose imagination and intellect "prove his continued vitality...with vigor and soul" ( Entertainment Weekly ), Look For Me and I'll Be Gone will entrance and surprise committed Wideman fans and newcomers alike.

Art of story -- Colored angel Levine -- Last day -- Separation -- Till -- Arizona -- Whose teeth/whose story -- Sheppard -- Penn Station -- Death row -- Rwanda -- Ipso facto -- BTM -- George Floyd story -- Accused . . . -- Atlanta murders -- Someone to watch over me -- Jordan -- Lost and found -- Lost love letters--a Locke -- Another story.

Forty years after John Edgar Wideman's first book of stories, comes this stunning collection that is vital reading for anyone interested in the state of America today. Its subjects range from Michael Jordan to Emmett Till, from distrust of authority to everyday grief, from childhood memories to the final day in a prison cell. A boy stands alone in his grandmother's house, unable to enter the room in which his grandfather's coffin lies, afraid the dead man may speak, afraid he won't speak. Freddie Jackson's song 'You Are My Lady' plays on the car radio as a son is brought to a prison cell in Arizona. A narrator contemplates the Atlanta child murders from 1979. Never satisfied to simply tell a story, Wideman continues to push form, with stories within stories, sentences that rise like a jazz solo with every connecting clause, voices that reflect who he is and where he's from, and an exploration of time that entangles past and present. Whether historical or contemporary, intimate or expansive, the stories here represent a pioneering American writer whose innovation and imagination know no bounds.

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