Philadelphia Fire

A passionate, angry and formally fascinating novel of urban disintegration * * New York Times * *
Philadelphia Fire isn't a book you read so much as one you breathe * * San Francisco Chronicle * *
A pyrotechnic display . . . Wideman's writing, like Toni Morrison's, is so pure and convincing that he can break the rules of classical storytelling, even invent some new ones * * Boston Globe * *
Reminiscent of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man * * Time * *
Philadelphia Fire delivers its message with a careening momentum and astonishing precision . . . Wideman has made fire his own, and there are fire figures everywhere, illuminating us and driving us back with heat and smoky confusion * * Los Angeles Times * *
Wideman astonishes us . . . insisting on our attention by the very daring of his prose and the authority with which he proceeds * * Philadelphia Inquirer * *
In incantatory, lyrical, naturalistic and inventive prose, Wideman writes of sex and race and life in the city, with all the beauty, profane humour and literary complexity of Joyce writing about Dublin * * Publishers Weekly * *
A tale of survival in which the author himself finds redemption in his art. With its dark and cynical humor, this metafiction will disturb as many readers as it dazzles * * Kirkus Reviews * *
There is a very obvious reason why John Edgar Wideman is one of America's most celebrated authors: he is very good * * Washington Post * *
A profound writer -- RICHARD FORD