Wideman, John Edgar - Mel Watkins (review date 13 November 1994)
Mel Watkins (review date 13 November 1994)
SOURCE: "A Son's Notes," in New York Times Book Review, Vol. 99, November 13, 1994, p. 11.
[In the following review, Watkins provides a laudatory assessment of Fatheralong.]
John Edgar Wideman's latest book, Fatheralong, is a hybrid. It is at once a memoir and a meditation on fatherhood, race, metaphysics, time and the afterlife. Mr. Wideman has laid claim to a vast landscape, which he traverses boldly, although occasionally with uneven steps.
As a memoir it is superb. The author brings all of his considerable skills (demonstrated in the novels of his Homewood trilogy and in his short fiction) into play in a quest to understand the simultaneous estrangement and physical connection he felt toward his father.
The book's title is derived from the gospel song "Father Along," a song that for Mr. Wideman suggests the value of "resignation, learning to wait and trust and endure."...
[The entire page is 819 words long]
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