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Two Cities
A redemptive, healing novel, Two Cities brings to brilliant culmination the themes John Edgar Wideman has developed in fourteen previous acclaimed books. It is a story of bridges -- bridges spanning the rivers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, bridges arching over the rifts that have divided our communities, our country, our hearts.
Narrated in the bluesy voices of its three main characters, Two Cities is a simple love story, but it is also about the survival of an endangered black urban community and the ways that people discover for redeeming themselves in a society that is failing them. With its indelible images of confrontation and outrage, matched in equal measure by lasting impressions of hope, Two Cities is a compassionate, lacerating, and nourishing novel.
Narrated in the bluesy voices of its three main characters, Two Cities is a simple love story, but it is also about the survival of an endangered black urban community and the ways that people discover for redeeming themselves in a society that is failing them. With its indelible images of confrontation and outrage, matched in equal measure by lasting impressions of hope, Two Cities is a compassionate, lacerating, and nourishing novel.
242 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1997
5 people are currently reading
181 people want to read
About the author
John Edgar Wideman
95 books408 followersA widely-celebrated writer and the winner of many literary awards, he is the first to win the International PEN/Faulkner Award twice: in 1984 for Sent for You Yesterday and in 1990 for Philadelphia Fire. In 2000 he won the O. Henry Award for his short story "Weight", published in The Callaloo Journal.
In March, 2010, he self-published "Briefs," a new collection of microstories, on Lulu.com. Stories from the book have already been selected for the O Henry Prize for 2010 and the Best African-American Fiction 2010 award.
His nonfiction book Brothers and Keepers received a National Book Award. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and much of his writing is set there, especially in the Homewood neighborhood of the East End. He graduated from Pittsburgh's Peabody High School, then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he became an All-Ivy League forward on the basketball team. He was the second African-American to win a Rhodes Scholarship (New College, Oxford University, England), graduating in 1966. He also graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Critics Circle nomination, and his memoir Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant. Wideman was chosen as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story in 1998, for outstanding achievement in that genre. In 1997, his novel The Cattle Killing won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction.
He has taught at the University of Wyoming, University of Pennsylvania, where he founded and chaired the African American Studies Department, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers. He currently teaches at Brown University, and he sits on the contributing editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions.
In March, 2010, he self-published "Briefs," a new collection of microstories, on Lulu.com. Stories from the book have already been selected for the O Henry Prize for 2010 and the Best African-American Fiction 2010 award.
His nonfiction book Brothers and Keepers received a National Book Award. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA and much of his writing is set there, especially in the Homewood neighborhood of the East End. He graduated from Pittsburgh's Peabody High School, then attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he became an All-Ivy League forward on the basketball team. He was the second African-American to win a Rhodes Scholarship (New College, Oxford University, England), graduating in 1966. He also graduated from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop.
Critics Circle nomination, and his memoir Fatheralong was a finalist for the National Book Award. He is also the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant. Wideman was chosen as winner of the Rea Award for the Short Story in 1998, for outstanding achievement in that genre. In 1997, his novel The Cattle Killing won the James Fenimore Cooper Prize for Best Historical Fiction.
He has taught at the University of Wyoming, University of Pennsylvania, where he founded and chaired the African American Studies Department, and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst's MFA Program for Poets & Writers. He currently teaches at Brown University, and he sits on the contributing editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 24, 2022
Zugenruhe
John Edgar Wideman's "Two Cities: A Love Story" (1998) tells a story of three African American lonely people and of city streets. The story is promising but is spoiled by polemic and anger. A Professor at Brown University, Wideman is the author of over 20 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has received many honors, including a MacArthur genius grant. "Two Cities" is the first work of Wideman's that I have read.
The book is set largely in the African American communities of two cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. One of the three major characters of the story, an elderly self-educated man, Mr Mallory, bridges the two cities and sets on the the themes on the novel through his study of the dictionary. Early in the book, he finds the work "zugenruhe" on the final page of his dictionary. The word means migration, and there is much of it in Mallory's life.
The book is short but difficult. It unfolds slowly and through indirection. The novel does not move by straightforward narrative. Instead the scenes, times, and speakers shift constantly. Most of the book is recounted as internal monologues in the words of the three protagonists. The book has a shimmering, shifting, and musical feel of jazz and blues riffs.
Besides Mallory, the two major characters in the novel are Robert Jones, 50, and Kassima, 35, recently widowed. Jones is a taciturn, reserved individual. He speaks of his early family life and of spending his youth raised by women, but only late in the novel does he state that he has been divorced and heartbroken. Jones says: "I lost a woman I loved and it didn't happen just yesterday and it still hurts very much. But I never met anybody who's grown and hasn't lost someone. Sometimes I believe it's what grown means. Means you been hurt bad at least once. So I'm plenty grown. A grownup man. Dues-paying grown. Is that enough about me."
Kassima has lost her two sons to gang warfare and her husband has died in prison within the space of ten months. One evening, she goes out to the local bar, Edgar's, meets Jones, and the two begin an on-again, off-again relationship. Kassima lives in rowhouse in a Pittsburgh neighborhood called Cassina. Jones grew up in the neighborhood years earlier, and he may have lived in the same house.
Mallory boards with Kassima and generally stays to himself. When the relationship between Kassima and Jones appears to come to a standstill, Mallory and Kassima begin to talk and the old man opens up about himself. Mallory had left his family many years earlier and served in WW II in Italy. He works hard at photography and sends lengthy letters to a surrealist sculpture and artist, Alberto Giacommetti (1901 -1966) whose work he admires. Mallory spent most of his adult life in Philadelphia where he befriended another historical character, John Africa. Africa (1931 -- 1985) was the founder of a Philadelphia black liberation group, MOVE, and he died when the Philadelphia police raided and attacked MOVE's headquarters and home.
The style of the book captures the rhythm of inner city music and the surrealism of Giacommetti. The novel includes many references to characters ranging from Greek mythology to the Bible, to Romaine Bearden, Theolonius Monk, and Bessie Smith to Emmitt Till. The story wanders among the three major characters, with Mallory's photographs and journeys in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Italy gradually coming to the forefront.
There is a great deal in the book about Move and John Africa. They are sympathetically and rather uncritically described. The prominence of gang warfare in the inner cities and the frightful toll it takes also is a strong theme of the book.
There is much to like about this book in its description of the protagonists, Kassima and Jones more than Mallory, and their fortitude. They show a determination to live and to move ahead in the face of obstacles. There is also a great deal in the book about forgiveness, giving others the "benefit of the doubt" and not bearing grudges.
Unfortunately, portions of this novel move slowly and become unduly muddled. More importantly, the book works away from its stated character as a "love story" and a depiction of place. It becomes a sharp, vitriolic social criticism of the "power structure" which allegedly keeps the novel's characters and individuals such as John Africa down. There is little in the book, in its scenes or character development, that supports the increasingly strident ideology. The characters' understanding of themselves and of each other works at cross-purposes to the criticism, probably deliberately but still ineffectively so. In his review of "Two Cities" in the September 28, 1998, "New York Times" titled "Two Cities: Stylistic Virtuosity, Distorted History", Richard Bernstein wrote:
"But 'Two Cities' is also an angry and intemperate book, so focused on that darkness and degradation as to be demagogic in its effect; exaggeratedly negative in its vision of American life and therefore politically reductive as well. There is no doubting Wideman's writerly craft or his remarkable ear for black American cadences and jive. From these points of view, 'Two Cities' is a great pleasure.What is troubling is its use of a kind of distorted history to substantiate a veritably cultish,mythic vision."
I agree with Bernstein. Although the book begins with a good deal of flair and promise, the social polemic the work assumes left me highly disappointed in the end.
Robin Friedman
John Edgar Wideman's "Two Cities: A Love Story" (1998) tells a story of three African American lonely people and of city streets. The story is promising but is spoiled by polemic and anger. A Professor at Brown University, Wideman is the author of over 20 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has received many honors, including a MacArthur genius grant. "Two Cities" is the first work of Wideman's that I have read.
The book is set largely in the African American communities of two cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. One of the three major characters of the story, an elderly self-educated man, Mr Mallory, bridges the two cities and sets on the the themes on the novel through his study of the dictionary. Early in the book, he finds the work "zugenruhe" on the final page of his dictionary. The word means migration, and there is much of it in Mallory's life.
The book is short but difficult. It unfolds slowly and through indirection. The novel does not move by straightforward narrative. Instead the scenes, times, and speakers shift constantly. Most of the book is recounted as internal monologues in the words of the three protagonists. The book has a shimmering, shifting, and musical feel of jazz and blues riffs.
Besides Mallory, the two major characters in the novel are Robert Jones, 50, and Kassima, 35, recently widowed. Jones is a taciturn, reserved individual. He speaks of his early family life and of spending his youth raised by women, but only late in the novel does he state that he has been divorced and heartbroken. Jones says: "I lost a woman I loved and it didn't happen just yesterday and it still hurts very much. But I never met anybody who's grown and hasn't lost someone. Sometimes I believe it's what grown means. Means you been hurt bad at least once. So I'm plenty grown. A grownup man. Dues-paying grown. Is that enough about me."
Kassima has lost her two sons to gang warfare and her husband has died in prison within the space of ten months. One evening, she goes out to the local bar, Edgar's, meets Jones, and the two begin an on-again, off-again relationship. Kassima lives in rowhouse in a Pittsburgh neighborhood called Cassina. Jones grew up in the neighborhood years earlier, and he may have lived in the same house.
Mallory boards with Kassima and generally stays to himself. When the relationship between Kassima and Jones appears to come to a standstill, Mallory and Kassima begin to talk and the old man opens up about himself. Mallory had left his family many years earlier and served in WW II in Italy. He works hard at photography and sends lengthy letters to a surrealist sculpture and artist, Alberto Giacommetti (1901 -1966) whose work he admires. Mallory spent most of his adult life in Philadelphia where he befriended another historical character, John Africa. Africa (1931 -- 1985) was the founder of a Philadelphia black liberation group, MOVE, and he died when the Philadelphia police raided and attacked MOVE's headquarters and home.
The style of the book captures the rhythm of inner city music and the surrealism of Giacommetti. The novel includes many references to characters ranging from Greek mythology to the Bible, to Romaine Bearden, Theolonius Monk, and Bessie Smith to Emmitt Till. The story wanders among the three major characters, with Mallory's photographs and journeys in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Italy gradually coming to the forefront.
There is a great deal in the book about Move and John Africa. They are sympathetically and rather uncritically described. The prominence of gang warfare in the inner cities and the frightful toll it takes also is a strong theme of the book.
There is much to like about this book in its description of the protagonists, Kassima and Jones more than Mallory, and their fortitude. They show a determination to live and to move ahead in the face of obstacles. There is also a great deal in the book about forgiveness, giving others the "benefit of the doubt" and not bearing grudges.
Unfortunately, portions of this novel move slowly and become unduly muddled. More importantly, the book works away from its stated character as a "love story" and a depiction of place. It becomes a sharp, vitriolic social criticism of the "power structure" which allegedly keeps the novel's characters and individuals such as John Africa down. There is little in the book, in its scenes or character development, that supports the increasingly strident ideology. The characters' understanding of themselves and of each other works at cross-purposes to the criticism, probably deliberately but still ineffectively so. In his review of "Two Cities" in the September 28, 1998, "New York Times" titled "Two Cities: Stylistic Virtuosity, Distorted History", Richard Bernstein wrote:
"But 'Two Cities' is also an angry and intemperate book, so focused on that darkness and degradation as to be demagogic in its effect; exaggeratedly negative in its vision of American life and therefore politically reductive as well. There is no doubting Wideman's writerly craft or his remarkable ear for black American cadences and jive. From these points of view, 'Two Cities' is a great pleasure.What is troubling is its use of a kind of distorted history to substantiate a veritably cultish,mythic vision."
I agree with Bernstein. Although the book begins with a good deal of flair and promise, the social polemic the work assumes left me highly disappointed in the end.
Robin Friedman
August 19, 2014
John Edgar Wideman is the Spike Lee, Charlie Parker, and John Coltrane of literature. This novel is like a good malbec: an acquired taste. Wideman breaks every grammar rule in the book in this ghetto love story: no exclamation points (I know, amateurish anyway), no question marks, no quotation marks for dialog, run-on sentences, and point of view shifts, at will. I wonder what William Strunk Jr. would say. But when you've won as many awards as Wideman has, you can break those constricting rules. That being said, Wideman's words actually sing off the page ... and if you have or are willing to develop the ear to, not just hear, but listen to this story about love, loss, pain, racism, reflection, and redemption you will be moved.
There also isn't much contrast in the characters adding to the confusion sometimes as to who is talking in the story (again no quotation marks). All the characters are haunted and reflective most likely a reflection of the author himself who has no doubt seen real-life versions of these characters in action. In short, Two Cities: A Love Story is smart, but hard to follow and a difficult read. If you want to test your literary muscles this one's for you. If you want a relaxing, entertaining, easy read, steer clear.
There also isn't much contrast in the characters adding to the confusion sometimes as to who is talking in the story (again no quotation marks). All the characters are haunted and reflective most likely a reflection of the author himself who has no doubt seen real-life versions of these characters in action. In short, Two Cities: A Love Story is smart, but hard to follow and a difficult read. If you want to test your literary muscles this one's for you. If you want a relaxing, entertaining, easy read, steer clear.
January 30, 2012
I've read this book for an Afro-American literature course and unfortunately I was really disappointed with it. I expected something quite extraordinary as a culmination of our course since I enjoyed every single book we've read. I've never before read anything by Wideman and I was expecting a postmodernist novel about love (I was mislead by the title), I was imagining something like Ishmael Reed together with Toni Morrison, instead I've received something rather incomprehensible, a story about pain and how miserable life in ghetto might be and how people get stuck there. This is a story about a woman who has lost two sons and a husband and is afraid of commitment.
I found absolutely nothing extraordinary about this novel and for me it was rather a hard and tiring read.
I found absolutely nothing extraordinary about this novel and for me it was rather a hard and tiring read.
August 5, 2013
I'm being somewhat gracious with four stars. The writing was superlative - beautifully poetic and (seemingly) authentic. I liked the story too.
The title suggests that the two cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, will be characters themselves, which wasn't the case. It seemed like the cities in this book could have been Newark, Oakland, Detroit, or Chicago.
I wish the pictures would have been described better. The story, and especially its conclusion, would have been more powerful had we "seen" those pictures too.
The addition of quotation marks would have made the reading easier. Sounds silly, I know, but it's true. Maybe blurring the line between storytelling and dialogue was a brilliant stylistic choice, but I would have appreciated some punctuation.
The title suggests that the two cities, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, will be characters themselves, which wasn't the case. It seemed like the cities in this book could have been Newark, Oakland, Detroit, or Chicago.
I wish the pictures would have been described better. The story, and especially its conclusion, would have been more powerful had we "seen" those pictures too.
The addition of quotation marks would have made the reading easier. Sounds silly, I know, but it's true. Maybe blurring the line between storytelling and dialogue was a brilliant stylistic choice, but I would have appreciated some punctuation.
April 22, 2023
It was really hard to get into the novel because of its structure and narration. The different viewpoint and voices are intermingled and even to distinguish who is speaking during dialogues can be quite hard since there are no quotation mark to help you. I felt like the author tried to do something with this sort of enigma, which you, as a reader, have to solve. It is like a puzzle, the author gives you one piece of the puzzle and then another one, but all in disorder. It could have been interesting, but it was too much and it only resulted in making the story confusing and disconcerting for nothing. It really was a pain in the a** for me to finish reading this book. The 240 pages felt like 500.
September 23, 2014
Oppressive bleak like Pennsylvania skies, "Two Cities" explores the soul-crushing experience of racism and hopelessness in urban Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Wideman' language is absolutely lyrical if impenetrable at times. The narrative is masterfully fragmented and layered with multiple voices in a way that unites the characters' experiences and, at best, conveys hope in the survival blacks have demonstrated. It's like resilience in a novel.
July 3, 2025
two cities (A Love Story), by John Edgar Wideman, is a lyrical and moving novel that takes place in Philadelphia and Pittsburg. I was traveling to Philadelphia and it felt like the right time to read this book. Three characters, eight chapters, and loaded with history: John Africa and Move, Emmett Till, and gang warfare.
The order of the book is not chronological, we meet Mr. Mallory in the opening chapter, Missing John Africa, reflecting on their conversations, and consulting his dictionary. Wideman uses metaphor throughout the book. Mr. Mallory is a photographer. We later learn he rents a room in a house with Cassina. He writes letters to the artist Giacometti, hoping for a correspondence that is one sided.
Later in the Philadelphia chapter, Wideman writes about John Africa, "They came for John Africa's people the first time in the heat of August. Bulldozed the stout barricade. Hot knife through butter."
In the 2nd chapter, Dancing at Edgar's, we meet the main couple who dance and go home and have good sex. Cassina and Robert Jones. After a couple of days together she needs her space. In the next chapter, Lamentations, we learn more about Cassina: her husband died of AIDS in prison, her two sons were killed in gang warfare. She's grieving. She, "Wanted some good fucking and got it."
I'm not going to go through all the chapters, but in this book Mr. Mallory dies in Cassina's bed, in a scene. After she finds him she calls Robert and asks him to come over after a long separation. He has been pursuing her; he enters and throws out her mattress. Cassina and Mr. Mallory had started talking during their separation. Earlier in the book, Robert realized who Mallory was in a post office scene where gang bangers came in and were acting out. Mallory introduced himself to the young men and asked if he could photograph them, which he did, the atmosphere changed, and the young men left.
After Mallory dies, Cassina carries out his requests, but one promise she has a problem with, he has asked her to burn his photographs and all the negatives. She looked at them, breaking her first promise that she wouldn't and is having a hard time with carrying through on burning his photographs. The funeral home has another client who was killed by a gangmember, and the gang is coming after him at the same time as Mallory's funeral. This is another eruption that is tense. Cassina intervenes to protect Mr. Mallory
But then, after Mallory has died, is a chapter devoted to a story when Mallory was in the war in Italy, which shows how important he is in this book. In the next chapter, Pittsburgh, speaking from Cassina, "...I started to understand all the years he lived didn't make him all that different from me. In some ways, I mean. I mean in the first place he wasn't just old. He had lots of ages in him. Like me. No name for how old I felt after my sons gone. Like that. It's how you feel inside. Age ain't nothing but a number, like people say."
And another quote from Cassina: "Beauty is, we don't have to win. That's why we can't lose. Just got to let people know a war's on. Gotta let folks in the Village, the whole city see for themselves what we're all up against. System wants invisible war. System don't want you to know who your real enemies are. It wants you scared and ignorant and confused so it can keep kicking your ass daily. So you don't make no progress, so you stay up in each other's faces fussing and doping and shooting and stealing and crying the blues and letting your kids kill each other. All that dumb shit instead of taking care of business. That's why we ona Move. Doing the right thing, moving out, moving on. People see us and see the cops trying to stop us. War ain't invisible no more. Time to get busy. time to choose sides."
This quote from a book published in 1998, and dedicated to Omar Wideman (1971-1992), a cousin of the author, shows the legacy of loss and pain. This article in Belt is from the author's brother: https://beltmag.com/prison-writing-lost-and-gain/.
I had to give this novel a 5 star rating, because it reflects so much history that continues. I remember the Move bombing, and Emmett Till's murder. The wisdom of Wideman's writing, through characters, equals truth. This book makes me want to read more of his work.
The order of the book is not chronological, we meet Mr. Mallory in the opening chapter, Missing John Africa, reflecting on their conversations, and consulting his dictionary. Wideman uses metaphor throughout the book. Mr. Mallory is a photographer. We later learn he rents a room in a house with Cassina. He writes letters to the artist Giacometti, hoping for a correspondence that is one sided.
Later in the Philadelphia chapter, Wideman writes about John Africa, "They came for John Africa's people the first time in the heat of August. Bulldozed the stout barricade. Hot knife through butter."
In the 2nd chapter, Dancing at Edgar's, we meet the main couple who dance and go home and have good sex. Cassina and Robert Jones. After a couple of days together she needs her space. In the next chapter, Lamentations, we learn more about Cassina: her husband died of AIDS in prison, her two sons were killed in gang warfare. She's grieving. She, "Wanted some good fucking and got it."
I'm not going to go through all the chapters, but in this book Mr. Mallory dies in Cassina's bed, in a scene. After she finds him she calls Robert and asks him to come over after a long separation. He has been pursuing her; he enters and throws out her mattress. Cassina and Mr. Mallory had started talking during their separation. Earlier in the book, Robert realized who Mallory was in a post office scene where gang bangers came in and were acting out. Mallory introduced himself to the young men and asked if he could photograph them, which he did, the atmosphere changed, and the young men left.
After Mallory dies, Cassina carries out his requests, but one promise she has a problem with, he has asked her to burn his photographs and all the negatives. She looked at them, breaking her first promise that she wouldn't and is having a hard time with carrying through on burning his photographs. The funeral home has another client who was killed by a gangmember, and the gang is coming after him at the same time as Mallory's funeral. This is another eruption that is tense. Cassina intervenes to protect Mr. Mallory
But then, after Mallory has died, is a chapter devoted to a story when Mallory was in the war in Italy, which shows how important he is in this book. In the next chapter, Pittsburgh, speaking from Cassina, "...I started to understand all the years he lived didn't make him all that different from me. In some ways, I mean. I mean in the first place he wasn't just old. He had lots of ages in him. Like me. No name for how old I felt after my sons gone. Like that. It's how you feel inside. Age ain't nothing but a number, like people say."
And another quote from Cassina: "Beauty is, we don't have to win. That's why we can't lose. Just got to let people know a war's on. Gotta let folks in the Village, the whole city see for themselves what we're all up against. System wants invisible war. System don't want you to know who your real enemies are. It wants you scared and ignorant and confused so it can keep kicking your ass daily. So you don't make no progress, so you stay up in each other's faces fussing and doping and shooting and stealing and crying the blues and letting your kids kill each other. All that dumb shit instead of taking care of business. That's why we ona Move. Doing the right thing, moving out, moving on. People see us and see the cops trying to stop us. War ain't invisible no more. Time to get busy. time to choose sides."
This quote from a book published in 1998, and dedicated to Omar Wideman (1971-1992), a cousin of the author, shows the legacy of loss and pain. This article in Belt is from the author's brother: https://beltmag.com/prison-writing-lost-and-gain/.
I had to give this novel a 5 star rating, because it reflects so much history that continues. I remember the Move bombing, and Emmett Till's murder. The wisdom of Wideman's writing, through characters, equals truth. This book makes me want to read more of his work.
November 29, 2023
Ghosts. Reminds me a lot of Beloved. So many ghosts everywhere; affecting the way a person lives their lives. They don't say a word but everyone seems to be grief mired, angry and hopeless in their living while those they loved are dead.
Maybe it is because this part of the season heading into the solstice already smacks of bringing the dead and living so close together or maybe it is something more personal. I have friends of friends dying through suicide, assisted suicide, and just plain death. The anniversary of my dad's death is coming up as well. An accidental one but still weighing on my mind so many years ago.
Maybe it is the heavy days of Trans Day of Remembrance and World AIDS Day. Those ghosts are still around too. And still no real hope on the way.
All those that I remember had some type of marginalization. But their deaths are only partially due to that directly. It was their living that put them into circumstances where it feels as if they could have all been avoidable.
Into this stew, there are still people living. This is a story about how you live with the ghosts without becoming bitter. In contrast to Beloved, this book feels like a description of what it means to keep on keeping on and trying to find a way through and co-existing with the ghosts in a way that isn't detrimental to the living. The living are trying to find a way not to hold on too hard. The ones that do, are destructive and angry.
All in all, while this isn't a book about me or for me, it resonated. I don't pity these people or sympathize, I learn from them. These characters have something to say, and they are worth listening to.
Maybe it is because this part of the season heading into the solstice already smacks of bringing the dead and living so close together or maybe it is something more personal. I have friends of friends dying through suicide, assisted suicide, and just plain death. The anniversary of my dad's death is coming up as well. An accidental one but still weighing on my mind so many years ago.
Maybe it is the heavy days of Trans Day of Remembrance and World AIDS Day. Those ghosts are still around too. And still no real hope on the way.
All those that I remember had some type of marginalization. But their deaths are only partially due to that directly. It was their living that put them into circumstances where it feels as if they could have all been avoidable.
Into this stew, there are still people living. This is a story about how you live with the ghosts without becoming bitter. In contrast to Beloved, this book feels like a description of what it means to keep on keeping on and trying to find a way through and co-existing with the ghosts in a way that isn't detrimental to the living. The living are trying to find a way not to hold on too hard. The ones that do, are destructive and angry.
All in all, while this isn't a book about me or for me, it resonated. I don't pity these people or sympathize, I learn from them. These characters have something to say, and they are worth listening to.
November 4, 2023
Re-read in 2023 after first tackling it 20 years ago. Downgraded from 4 to 3.
When Wideman wants to be, he's a good writer. An old man squaring off with some jerks in the post office, a middle-aged guy on the basketball court confronting fatigue and gangsters, a woman with two dead sons refusing another relationship because she can't stand to have her heart broken.
However, when Wideman wants to beat the reader over the head with the MOVEment and John Africa it gets cringe real fast. He mentioned Emmett Till so many times it was hard to suppress a smile at the fifty-eleventh waving of the bloody shirt.
I thought that now, having lived in Philly and spent some time in Pittsburgh in the two decades since I first read the book that I would have a deeper understanding. That was not correct. The author just couldn't get out of his own way and I was once too young to notice.
When Wideman wants to be, he's a good writer. An old man squaring off with some jerks in the post office, a middle-aged guy on the basketball court confronting fatigue and gangsters, a woman with two dead sons refusing another relationship because she can't stand to have her heart broken.
However, when Wideman wants to beat the reader over the head with the MOVEment and John Africa it gets cringe real fast. He mentioned Emmett Till so many times it was hard to suppress a smile at the fifty-eleventh waving of the bloody shirt.
I thought that now, having lived in Philly and spent some time in Pittsburgh in the two decades since I first read the book that I would have a deeper understanding. That was not correct. The author just couldn't get out of his own way and I was once too young to notice.
October 2, 2021
Wideman si dimostra un abile giocoliere dello stile linguistico e della sintassi, inventando un nuovo modo di scrivere, che pur facendo a pugni con le regole tradizionali della scrittura, trasforma un romanzo in una lunga, struggente e tenera poesia.
Di contro questo stile così al di fuori degli schemi non è sempre di facile digestione. Alcuni passaggi necessitano una rilettura per essere ben compresi, ma molti altri la seconda lettura la meritano semicemente per la bellezza che esprimono.
Di contro questo stile così al di fuori degli schemi non è sempre di facile digestione. Alcuni passaggi necessitano una rilettura per essere ben compresi, ma molti altri la seconda lettura la meritano semicemente per la bellezza che esprimono.
August 21, 2014
La scrittura di Wideman è davvero innovativa: un flusso di coscienza che diventa un racconto, che si trasforma in un dialogo, in una lettera, poi in una telefonata...
e così scorre la storia, con una meravigliosa scarsità di punteggiatura e un background che si costruisce attorno al lettore.
Commovente il personaggio del signor Mallory, il vecchietto che andava in giro con la sua macchina fotografica in un sacchetto di plastica, ma non riusciva a compiere il suo progetto, e si vergognava delle sue pur meravigliose foto.
La storia è amara, forse perchè verosimile: una donna di un quartiere nero di Philadelphia ha perso il marito e i due figli a causa della criminalità e delle guerre tra bande. Poi, inaspettatamente, si innamora di un uomo con il quale aveva in programma solo una notte di sesso, e la parte di sè che ha paura si chiede se non sia meglio lasciarlo, piuttosto che rischiare di perdere anche lui..
http://iltesorodicarta.blogspot.it/20...
e così scorre la storia, con una meravigliosa scarsità di punteggiatura e un background che si costruisce attorno al lettore.
Commovente il personaggio del signor Mallory, il vecchietto che andava in giro con la sua macchina fotografica in un sacchetto di plastica, ma non riusciva a compiere il suo progetto, e si vergognava delle sue pur meravigliose foto.
La storia è amara, forse perchè verosimile: una donna di un quartiere nero di Philadelphia ha perso il marito e i due figli a causa della criminalità e delle guerre tra bande. Poi, inaspettatamente, si innamora di un uomo con il quale aveva in programma solo una notte di sesso, e la parte di sè che ha paura si chiede se non sia meglio lasciarlo, piuttosto che rischiare di perdere anche lui..
http://iltesorodicarta.blogspot.it/20...
Want to read
December 16, 2016* Understanding Oppression: African American Rights (Then and Now)
Two Cities: A Love Story by John Edgar Wideman | Narrated in the bluesy voices of its three main characters, Two Citiesis a simple love story, but it is also about the survival of an endangered black urban community and the ways that people discover for redeeming themselves in a society that is failing them. #love #truth #hope
Two Cities: A Love Story by John Edgar Wideman | Narrated in the bluesy voices of its three main characters, Two Citiesis a simple love story, but it is also about the survival of an endangered black urban community and the ways that people discover for redeeming themselves in a society that is failing them. #love #truth #hope
March 23, 2008
This book makes your heart race like you're having a panic attack. Holy jazzy cadence! and what a tender love and fear he shows for Philly and Pittsburgh.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews