Orally or on the page, John Edgar Wideman never seems to stray far from firsthand experience. -Writing for me is a way of opening up, - he states in one of the interviews in this collection, -a way of sharing, a way of making sense of the world, and writing's very appeal is that it gives me a kind of hands-on way of coping with the very difficult business of living a life.-

Wideman shares the joy and pain of his life experience. The easy laughter accompanying many of these interviews shows that conversations with him can be intense and fun.

This book spans thirty-five years. Wideman...

Emmett Till took a train from his home in Chicago to visit family in Money, Mississippi; a few weeks later he returned home dead. Murdered because he was a colored boy and had, allegedly, whistled at a white woman. His mother, Mamie Till, chose to display her son's...