Hiding Place (novel)
Encyclopedia
Hiding Place is a novel
by the American
writer John Edgar Wideman
set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
during the 1970s.
The novel tells the story of Tommy, a character who first appeared in Wideman's short story collection Damballah. Tommy is a party to a bungled smash-and-grab raid that leaves a dead man in a parking lot, so he hides out with Mother Bess, a crazy old woman who lives in Homewood, an African American
neighborhood of the East End.
Elements of the character Tommy parallel the life of Wideman's brother Robbie, whose story he relates in a memoir published three years later called Brothers and Keepers.
Hiding Place is the middle volume of what some critics call The Homewood Trilogy. The other books are Damballah and Sent for You Yesterday. In 1992 the University of Pittsburgh Press
published the three in one volume under the title The Homewood Books. In its preface Wideman admits discomfort with the term trilogy because it implies a plan of linking the volumes, and he claims he did not compose the books that way.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by the American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
writer John Edgar Wideman
John Edgar Wideman
John Edgar Wideman is an American writer, professor at Brown University, and sits on the contributing editorial board of the literary journal Conjunctions.-Early life:...
set in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
during the 1970s.
The novel tells the story of Tommy, a character who first appeared in Wideman's short story collection Damballah. Tommy is a party to a bungled smash-and-grab raid that leaves a dead man in a parking lot, so he hides out with Mother Bess, a crazy old woman who lives in Homewood, an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
neighborhood of the East End.
Elements of the character Tommy parallel the life of Wideman's brother Robbie, whose story he relates in a memoir published three years later called Brothers and Keepers.
Hiding Place is the middle volume of what some critics call The Homewood Trilogy. The other books are Damballah and Sent for You Yesterday. In 1992 the University of Pittsburgh Press
University of Pittsburgh Press
The University of Pittsburgh Press is a scholarly publishing house and a major American university press, part of the University of Pittsburgh. The university and the press are located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States....
published the three in one volume under the title The Homewood Books. In its preface Wideman admits discomfort with the term trilogy because it implies a plan of linking the volumes, and he claims he did not compose the books that way.