Brothers and Keepers

New York, N.Y. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1984. First Edition [Stated], First Printing [Stated]. Hardcover. ix, [1] 243 pages. Includes Author's Note, Visits -1; Our Time; and Doing Time--167. Inscribed on the fep by the author to Gene [Gressley] and Joyce. Inscription reads "If we're not our brothers keepers--then who will look out for us. Best Wishes, John." Flyer on signing event laid in. In a study that is part autobiography and part social history, the author documents the life of his younger brother, Robby, who has been imprisoned for life without parole, discussing the reasons for his own success and his brother's tragedy. John Edgar Wideman (born June 14, 1941) is an American novelist, short story writer, memoirist, and essayist. He was the first person to win the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction twice. His writing is known for experimental techniques and a focus on the African-American experience.
Wideman excelled as a student athlete at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1963, he became the second African American to win a Rhodes Scholarship to attend the University of Oxford. In addition to his work as a writer, Wideman has had a career in academia as a literature and creative writing professor at both public and Ivy League universities. In his writing, Wideman has explored the complexities of race, family, trauma, storytelling, and justice in the United States. His personal experience, including the incarceration of his brother, has played a significant role in his work. He is a professor emeritus at Brown University. This is the story of two brothers. The older brother, John Edgar Wideman, grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, a college professor, and a highly regarded novelist. John's kid brother Rob, ten years his junior, took the low road to deep trouble. When he was little more than an overgrown kid, he became involved in petty thievery and the drug scene endemic to the ghetto. Eventually, he and his friends organized a scam during which the projected target, himself a fence and petty thief, was shot and killed. Robby and one of his buddies were arrested, tried, and ultimately sentenced to life imprisonment, without the possibility of probation or parole. Using a combination of straight narrative, and, interwoven throughout, Robby's own voice as recorded in prison, and his toughly honest, often poignant letters, John Edgar Wideman has written a work that is major in its concern, vital in its commitment, and deeply moving. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984. The New York Times describes the book as a "gripping account of the events, social pressures and individual psychological responses that led his brother Robert to prison for murder and him [the author] to a middle-class life as a professor of English" and also as "a sensitive and intimate portrayal of the lives and divergent paths taken by two brothers". It furthermore is described as a "source of some powerfully written scenes in which he conveys his impressions of American prisons" especially the experiences with the guards, "the Keepers", who degrade the prisoners as well as their guests. He has "succeeded brilliantly in both understanding his brother's life and coming to terms with his own." Derived from a Kirkus review: Since 1975, when his younger brother Robby was arrested (and later jailed) for armed robbery and murder, professor/novelist Wideman has been wrestling with this situation—as a family tragedy, as a sociological puzzle, as a personal torment, as material for his fiction. Here, then, after long prison-visit talks with Robby, Wideman tries to put it all together—in a dense, restless, tortured mosaic that adds illumination to the central knot of anguish. An opening section moves from memories of the 1975 nightmare to musings on the brotherly bond, lyrical/earthy vignettes from Pittsburgh family-history, Wideman's guilt over rejecting his black background, and an evocation of a visit to Robby in prison. Then, after a strong close-up of Wideman's mother, embittered and "radicalized" by her son's fate, Robby's own recollections take over: childhood jealousy of his successful older siblings, staking out his own territory, and becoming a street-smart hood—especially after getting hooked on drugs. Bobby's confessions—a long, naturalistic drone of shooting up, dealing, stealing—deepen the drama here or to help explain the basic mystery: why is one brother a professor in Wyoming, the other in for life at a Pennsylvania penitentiary? And Wideman's own broodings, eloquent as they rub salt into the wound, end up pretty much where they begin. A powerful initial grab, the virtues of fiction (texture and emotion), and drama and insight. Condition: Very good / Very good.

Keywords: Siblings, Family, Race, Racism, Crime, Punishment, Guilt, Drug Abuse, Ghetto, Brothers, Prison, Pittsburgh

ISBN: 0030617545

[Book #81727]

Price: $85.00

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