Potent, lyrical, powerful stories and a great work of sociolinguistics. ( )

This is a book of short stories by John Edgar Wideman.
Wideman is often referred to as an experimental writer, but he also writes a great deal of excellent traditional prose.
In this collection a number of the stories are connected, a number being about his family members who were imprisoned.
Although Wideman never formally published poetry, to my eyes lots of his writing is poetry, albeit often blank verse, sections can stand alone as beautiful words. He also philosophises, or just recounts tales within tales.
I didn’t get on with some parts of some stories in this collection, but even those stories that I didn’t enjoy so much had bits that I liked, sometimes liked very much.
Wideman says so much that very few people can like everything that he says, but by the same token I don’t believe that there is anybody that wouldn’t like at least big chunks of his work.
A collection of stories that is bang up to date, and a worthy addition to his catalogue of work.
Overall very very good.

My thanks to the publisher for an advanced copy for honest review. ( )

Look for Me and I'll Be Gone is a powerful and nuanced collection of short stories from John Edgar Wideman. If you're familiar with his short fiction you will be delighted with this new collection, if this is your introduction to him, it will serve very nicely.

In any collection of short stories by a single author I fully expect to have some I love, some I don't care for, and most somewhere in the middle. In this collection, the ones that I might say I liked least were still too good in some respect for me to say I didn't care for them. Let me explain. There were a few stories that didn't draw me into the scene or narrative, which usually would put them in my lower category. Yet those stories in this case still made me ponder what I was observing and come away with a better understanding. That understanding might have been of the protagonist or of the society that person, and by extension myself, inhabits. Upon rereading those stories I never failed to immerse myself more completely in the story. So this is one of those collections that doesn't, for me, have a truly weak story, just ones that speak to me differently (or in different time frames).

I realize that some readers don't care to put forth the effort to engage with short fiction that doesn't look and sound like every other short story in tone and form. I do understand that, if one is reading just to get from the beginning to the end and not really engage with what lies between then even as short as some of these are they will require too much work. But, if you read primarily to spend time in that space between the beginning and end, then you will enjoy that these reward an active reading rather than a passive one. When a line or word choice trips you up, ask why Wideman may have chosen what he did. Will you know his reason? Probably not, but you will likely come up with possible reasons and each of those will offer you more avenues into and through the story.

I would highly recommend this to readers (and writers) of short fiction. Especially those readers who want to dwell within a story and not simply rack up a page count. Those who study, formally or not, the intersection of various art forms and the larger society within which they are produced and consumed will have a lot here to think about. As an aside, a book I am also finishing up fits very well with this one. Antagonistic Cooperation: Jazz, Collage, Fiction, and the Shaping of African American Culture by Robert G O'Meally.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )