The Homewood Trilogy (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: John Edgar Wideman
- First Published: 1981
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: From the mid-nineteenth century to the 1980’s, primarily the early twentieth century to the 1980’s
- Setting: The Homewood section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: African Americans
- Locales: Pittsburgh, PA
Characters Discussed
Damballah, 1981
John Lawson, who sometimes appears in the stories in the persona of Doot Lawson. Lawson is the grandson of John French and brother of Tommy Lawson. He returns to Homewood after teaching in Wyoming and learns many of its stories. Losing his individuation as he connects past with present and turns sadness into song, John is the “blues mind” who posits Homewood within a collectivity of ancestry and tradition. Finding a voice to tell his brother’s tale, John begins Damballah as an alien from his culture. Through...
[The entire page is 1281 words long]
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