You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981-2018

by John Edgar Wideman, Walton Muyumba (Foreword by)

Overview

A powerful and “stunning” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) selection of the best of John Edgar Wideman’s short stories over his fifty-year career, representing the wide range of his intellectual and artistic pursuits.

When John Edgar Wideman won the PEN Malamud Award in 2019, he joined a list of esteemed writers—from Eudora Welty to George Saunders—all of whom are acknowledged masters of the short story. Wideman’s commitment to short fiction has been lifelong, and here he gathers a representative selection from throughout his career, stories that “have a wary, brooding spirit, a lonely intelligence…[and] air the problem of consciousness, including the fragile contingency of our existence” (The New York Times).

Wideman’s stories are grounded in the streets and the people of Homewood, the Pittsburgh neighborhood of his childhood, but they range far beyond there, to the small western towns of Wyoming and historic Philadelphia, the contemporary world and the ancient past. He explores the interior lives of his characters, and the external pressures that shape them. These stories are as intellectually intricate as they are rich with the language and character. “Wideman has been compared to William Faulkner and James Baldwin…[these] prove that he is every bit as masterful a cartographer of the American spirit as his forebears" (Esquire).

Comprised of thirty-five stories drawn from past collections (American Histories, Briefs, God’s Gym, All Stories Are True, Fever, and Damballah), and an introductory essay by the National Book Critics Circle board member and scholar Walton Muyumba, this volume of Wideman’s selected stories celebrates the lifelong significance of this major American writer’s essential contribution to a form—illuminating the ways that he has made it his own. “If there were any doubts Wideman belongs to the American canon, this puts them to bed” (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982148935
Publisher:	Scribner
Publication date:	04/06/2021
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	252,622
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

John Edgar Wideman’s books include, among others, Look for Me and I’ll Be Gone, You Made Me Love You, American Histories, Writing to Save a Life, Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, Fatheralong, Hoop Roots, and Sent for You Yesterday. He won the PEN/Faulkner Award twice and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and National Book Award. He is a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Lifetime Achievement, and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. He divides his time between New York and France. 

Table of Contents

Introduction Walton Muyumba xi

Damballah (1981) 1

To Robby 3

Damballah: Good Serpent of the Sky 5

A Begat Chart 7

Damballah 9

Daddy Garbage 19

Lizabeth: The Caterpillar Story 35

Across the Wide Missouri 51

Tommy 59

Solitary 77

Fever (1989) 89

Doc's Story 91

Surfiction 99

Fever 107

All Stories Are True (1992) 133

All Stories Are True 135

Backseat 149

What He Saw 175

Newborn Thrown in Trash and Dies 191

Welcome 199

God's Gym (2005) 213

Weight 215

The Silence of Thelonious Monk 229

Are Dreams Faster Than the Speed of Light 241

Who Invented the Jump Shot 257

What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence 275

Briefs (2010) 297

Witness 299

To Barry Bonds: Home Run King 301

War Stories 303

Close 305

Party 307

Automatic 309

Writing 311

Breath 313

Message 315

Manhole 317

Martyr 319

Ruins 321

Cleaning Up 323

You Are My Sunshine 325

New Work 327

Short Story 329

Swimming 331

Answering Service 333

Ghetto 335

Review 337

Fall 339

Now You See It 341

First Love Suite 343

Ralph Waldo Ellison 345

Genocide 347

Passing On 349

Haiku 351

Wolf Whistle 353

Shadow 355

American Histories (2018) 357

JB & FD 359

My Dead 377

Maps and Ledgers 381

Williamsburg Bridge 397

Nat Turner Confesses 425

Collage 443

Notes 461

Editorial Reviews

★ 03/01/2021

This career-spanning collection of work by Wideman (Brother’s Keeper), with a revelatory foreword by critic and scholar Walton Muyumba, offers a stunning showcase of Wideman’s range. In stories selected from 1981’s Damballah up through 2018’s American Histories, Wideman conveys a mastery of gritty realism, freewheeling blues, erudite autofiction, and African American mysticism, often grounded in a semi-fictional version of the Homewood section of Pittsburgh, the historically Black neighborhood where Wideman grew up. “Solitary” chronicles a mother’s daylong ordeal to visit her son in prison, while in “Daddy Garbage,” an iceball vendor’s dog is hell-bent on eating from garbage cans: “Strayhorn knew it was less holding on to puppy ways than it was stone craziness, craziness age nor nothing else ever going to change.” Wideman shines brightest in pieces that tunnel through history or the narrator’s consciousness as they build to their reveals, such as “Maps and Ledgers,” in which a writing professor ruminates on stories such as that of an ancestor who escaped from slavery. Muyumba convincingly encourages close reading of “Damballah,” about an unnamed enslaved boy who honors the severed head of a man punished for practicing West African rituals: “listen to the head,” Muyumba writes. If there were any doubts Wideman belongs to the American canon, this puts them to bed. Agent: Jin Auh, the Wylie Agency. (April)

Publishers Weekly

"[John Edgar Wideman's] postindustrial Pittsburgh is the locus of many of his novels and memoirs, and its texture and sociology burn a hole through the stories in “You Made Me Love You: Selected Stories, 1981-2018... Wideman’s stories have a wary, brooding spirit, a lonely intelligence. They carry a real but atrophied affection for America. He airs the problems of consciousness, including the fragile contingency of our existence."—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"With [Wideman's] searing explorations of race and rage, of language and laughter, of sin and suffering, he's both timeless and topical. We all stand on his broad shoulders."—Oprah Daily

"Compiled over a 37-year span, this selection of short stories...introduces the reader to characters who face peril, pathos, and heartache. A singular muscularity infuses these narratives, a confidence that astonishes."—Arts Fuse Magazine

"This career-spanning collection of work by Wideman, with a revelatory foreword by critic and scholar Walton Muyumba, offers a stunning showcase of Wideman's range... If there were any doubts Wideman belongs to the American canon, this puts them to bed."—Publisher's Weekly, starred review

"Wideman has been compared to William Faulkner and James Baldwin; the stories in You Made Me Love You prove that he is every bit as masterful a cartographer of the American spirit as his forebears."—Esquire

"You Made Me Love You at last assembles the best of Wideman’s [stories]—rich, strange, and deeply felt—for anybody or everybody to read."
—AV Club, Most Anticipated of 2021

"Spanning three decades and showcasing 35 stories from venerated Wideman's accomplished career, this stunning collection is a testament to ingenious storytelling. Through vividly portrayed voices, evocative settings, and expansive themes, these tales put Wideman’s talent for exploring the indelible connections that unite generations on full display ... This is an essential collection for both readers familiar with Wideman’s oeuvre and those just discovering this modern master."—Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher