First published 2005
John Edgar Wideman confronts a painful family divide in this memoir about two brothers whose lives split dramatically. Wideman became an award-winning novelist while his younger brother Robby turned to crime, eventually becoming a fugitive sought for robbery and murder. The author traces Robby's capture and the trials that led to his life sentence. Wideman takes readers inside the American prison system, revealing its harsh realities through his brother's experience. He examines the blood ties, love, and guilt that still bind him to Robby despite the vast distance between their worlds. The memoir explores how two people from the same family can arrive at such different destinations and what responsibility one brother bears for the other's fate.
Genres: family, 20th-century, american, african-american, crime, non-fiction, biography-memoir
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: brothers, family-divide
Setting: America
Period: 20th-century
266 pages · Paperback · Mariner Books