Two cities / John Edgar Wideman.
Record details
- ISBN: 0395857309
- Physical Description: 242 p. ; 22 cm.
- Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998.
Search for related items by subject
Subject: | African Americans > Pennsylvania > Pittsburgh > Fiction. African Americans > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia > Fiction. |
Available copies
- 4 of 4 copies available at Bibliomation. (Show)
- 0 of 0 copies available at Rockville Public Library.
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- 0 current holds with 4 total copies.
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Kirkus Review
Two Cities : A Love Story
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A somber, eloquent meditation on isolation and violence. Wideman (The Cattle Killing, 1990, etc.) sets this tightly focused novel largely in Homewood, the black neighborhood in Pittsburgh that heÂs depictedÂand memorializedÂmany times before. The second city referred to in the title is Philadelphia, seen in flashback, in scenes illuminated by the light of the neighborhood inadvertently burned down by the police during their confrontation with the black separatist group MOVE. The three narrators here have all been profoundly scarred by violence: Kassima, still a young woman, has lost her husband to AIDS, and her two adolescent sons to gang-related violence (an ongoing war between the ``Red'' and ``Blue''); Robert Jones, the 50-year-old man whom Kassima takes home in an attempt to dissolve her intense isolation, has had most of his hopes undone by racism; and Mr. Mallory, Kassima's aged tenant, has been driven to the point of desperation by the violence he has witnessed, beginning when he and some fellow black soldiers were ambushed by white soldiers while serving in Italy in WWII. Mallory, who had lived in Philadelphia, recalls repeatedly his friendship with John Africa, the doomed founder of MOVE. While Kassima and Robert begin a wary courtship, described in first-person narratives of great, idiosyncratic vigor (few novelists capture the tang and rhythm and aggressive force of the spoken word as well as Wideman), Mr. Mallory spends his time wandering Homewood's streets, hoping to catch the reality of its sufferings with his camera, or writing letters to the sculptor Alberto Giacometti, whom he reveres. The letters allow Wideman to speculate on the ways in which art can explore (and perhaps partly remedy) alienation and despair. The climax occurs at Mr. Mallory's funeral, interrupted by the ``Blues,'' which spurs an aroused Kassima to confront the violence that has destroyed her family and to make public her tenant's disturbing photos. An angry, moving work from one of the most original, and accomplished, of modern American novelists. (Author tour)
BookList Review
Two Cities : A Love Story
Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Wideman is getting increasingly experimental, which is not necessarily good news, for he is also getting increasingly opaque. His latest novel is a series of vignettes about events in the lives of a small group of individuals, told in their voices, almost as confessions. The two main characters are Kassima, whose husband died of AIDS in prison and whose two boys were killed on the streets, and her tenant, Mr. Mallory, who roams their Pittsburgh neighborhood taking photographs with his camera, his "toy," his head crowded with memories of his past. Their words extract considerable poignancy from their hard lives; in their attitudes toward themselves and others are couched much pride, defensiveness, despair, and hope. But these are disembodied voices speaking to us; the speakers do not seem like clear-cut, rounded individuals, but more like actors lined up onstage reciting lines rather than acting out roles. Also, it is not always clear who is speaking, and once readers get used to a certain character's voice, that character may reappear later with a voice that sounds different, adding to the narrative confusion. Granted, much of Wideman's language is beautiful, but is that enough to compel the reader to work so hard to gain a feel for these characters, to recognize them as individuals and fully comprehend their plights? Wideman's numerous fans will have to determine for themselves how much effort they want to bring to the novel to make it a successful reading experience. --Brad Hooper
Publishers Weekly Review
Two Cities : A Love Story
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
A dark and brooding fugue on the nature of violence, Wideman's latest novel (after The Cattle Killing) again dispenses with conventional narrative development to compose a many-charactered testament to the suffering of people affected by the brutal force of power. Among the people who make cameo appearances are blues singer Bessie Smith, sculptor Alberto Giacometti, jazz musician Thelonious Monk and John Africa, the black revolutionary who led the back-to-Africa movement known as MOVE, and whose Philadelphia settlement was bombed by the police. They are part of the world of the three lost souls who wander sadly through the novel in a fashion by now familiar to readers of Wideman's fiction. Kassima is a widow in mourning for her husband and two sons who died in the streets of Pittsburgh. Soft-spoken, mysterious Robert Jones is the man who is trying to break through the barriers of her long suffering. Martin Mallory is Kassima's tenant, an eccentric photographer whose works depicting the 50-year history of life in the black neighborhoods of Pittsburgh and PhiladelphiaÂthe two cities of the titleÂhelp to heal old wounds and bridge the gap between differences. The first two-time PEN Faulkner award winner, Wideman blends some of his nonfiction themes from Philadelphia Fire and the memoir Fatherlong into the present work. The narrative segues in and out of time and place settings and points of view, often without transition. It is the hypnotic pull of his characters' distinctive monologues, the short, musical sentences flowing with easy vernacular, that bring this story to life. In the end, this dreamlike blend of unsparing realism and charged fantasy carry the reader along to a climaxing vision of cathartic force and clarity. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Two Cities : A Love Story
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
"Beautifully structured, cunningly interlaced, and sensuously immediate," this novel by the highly regarded Wideman (The Cattle Killing, LJ 7/96) presents the story of an African American woman afraid to love after losing both husband and sons to street violence. Photographs documenting a half-century of black experience help call her back to life. (LJ 10/15/98) (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.