âA powerful assemblage of short stories exploring late-in-life angst through personal myth, cultural memory, and riffs on an empire scorched by its own hubrisâ (O, The Oprah Magazine) from award-winning author John Edgar Widemanâhis first collection in more than a decade.
âRace 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 shiftingâ (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 âJB & FD,â Wideman reimagines conversations between John Brown, the antislavery crusader, and Frederick Douglass, the abolitionist and oratorâconversations that produce a fantastical, rich correspondence that spans years and ideologies. âMaps and Ledgersâ eavesdrops on a brother and sister today as they ponder their fatherâs killing of another man. âWilliamsburg Bridgeâ sits inside a man sitting on a bridge who contemplates his life before he decides to jump. âMy Deadâ is a story about how the already-departed demand more time, more space in the lives of those who survive them.
American Histories is âan important addition to Widemanâs body of writing and a remarkable demonstration of his ability to address social issues through a range of fictional forms and stylesâ (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 bestâemotionally precise and intellectually stimulatingâan extraordinary collection by a master.