… probing, exploratory … remarkable stylistic range … Mr. Wideman is one of the great tragedians of American literature … A sense of existential mystery that transcends time binds together the many and disparate voices the stories assume…[a] technique of blending together elements of ancestry, history, philosophy and literary theory into a somber, incantatory unified whole … this collection, Mr. Wideman’s artistic consummation, is also the site of his unraveling, and there are moments of unbearable vulnerability when the author puts aside his great gifts to lie down in the rag and bone shop of the heart.