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Philadelphia Fire: A Novel Kindle Edition

3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

One of John Wideman’s most ambitious and celebrated works, the lyrical masterpiece and PEN/Faulkner winner inspired by the 1985 police bombing of the West Philadelphia row house owned by black liberation group Move.

In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing eleven people and starting a fire that destroyed sixty other houses. At the heart of
Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past, and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.

Award-winning author John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel. “Reminiscent of Ralph Ellison’s
Invisible Man” (Time) and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, Philadelphia Fire is a masterful, culturally significant work that takes on a major historical event and takes us on a brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

When African-American writer Cudjoe returns to his hometown of Philadelphia to write a book about the 1985 police firebombing of a black cult, his homecoming spurs within him a myriad of memories and impressions. While recalling the abandonment of his white wife and two children, his failed novel and a dead mentor, he provides rich observation about the about the crumbling state of a once-beloved city. As his research unfolds, he examines issues of sex, race and the life of the city, ultimately uncovering information that sets the entire city into motion. Philadelphia Fire won the PEN/Faulkner Award for 1991.

From Publishers Weekly

Wideman's extraordinary new novel is really two books, each an exhilarating, dependent rival of the other. The early passages present expatriate black writer Cudjoe, who returns to his native Philadelphia hoping to write a book about the 1985 police firebombing of the headquarters of a black cult. Cudjoe's homecoming spurs a confluence of vivid memories and impressions within the character's meticulously delineated consciousness. He recalls the abandonment of his white wife and two children; his failed novel; a dead mentor. Through his sensibility we also receive a rich evocation of the urban environment and of the city's new status as a deteriorating, black-governed metropolis. In incantatory, lyrical, naturalistic and inventive prose, Wideman writes of sex and race and life in the city, with all the beauty, profane humor and literary complexity of Joyce writing about Dublin. The final section of the work--with its quickly shifting voices, personas, historical and metaphorical inferences--has as its core a redemptive black vernacular interpretation of Shakespeare's The Tempest , in which the horrific firebombing of the title is raised to the symbolic level of Prospero's storm. Wideman's fiery tempest sets his characters--black and white, male and female, adult and child--into motion, hurtling toward one another with the possibility of self-knowledge and salvation. 75,000 first printing; major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B084G97KV1
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (October 6, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ October 6, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1263 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 206 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.8 3.8 out of 5 stars 48 ratings

About the author

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John Edgar Wideman
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JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN is the author of more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the award-winning Brothers and Keepers, Philadelphia Fire, and most recently the story collection God's Gym. He is the recipient of two PEN/ Faulkner Awards and has been nominated for the National Book Award. He teaches at Brown University.

Customer reviews

3.8 out of 5 stars
48 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2018
    Excellent, underrated book. Admittedly confusing and ambiguous, with the use of stream of consciousness narration leading you places you often aren't prepared to (nor want to) go. But it's just such a fascinating representation of the authorial self, of the personal imbued with the political. Wideman shows us the challenging process of writing about a significant & difficult event, the struggle between being both on the inside and the outside, the near impossibility of giving a sufficient representation. If you want a linear, "objective" retelling of the fire, there are other books for that. If you want a cleanly-tailored adventure story about a heroic protagonist finding a lost boy, there are other books for that. Wideman's novel does something strikingly different, and if you're willing to step out of your comfort zone, it's absolutely worth the read.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on October 11, 2020
    Philadelphia Fire is about the police bombing of residence of the afro-centric cult known as Move. The group has been a fixture in the city for many years, and this was not the first time that the city attempted to remove the group from West Philadelphia. Philadelphia Fire is the story of Cudjoe, who returns to Philadelphia to search for the one of the survivors of the police bombing of the MOVE compound.

    I have to admit I came to Philadelphia Fire from a unique perspective. I had lived at 32nd and Powelton when I was in college and the MOVE compound was around the corner at 311 N 33rd. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them until one summer morning I left my apartment for work and happened to look down the street towards 33rd. What I saw that summer morning was lines of police vehicles, backhoes and bulldozers ready to have the MOVE members vacate their residence under court order.

    By the time I got home, the shoot-out was over and the residence was gone. There were rats as big as cats running all over the block and the rooftops of the apartments on the block. And yet, this is only one side of the story with one small glimpse into the conflict that MOVE members had with the city of Philadelphia and it’s leaders.

    As for the 1985 bombing, I watched it on TV like everyone else.I was very far removed from the events and the struggle of the MOVE members.

    Wideman gives us an important, and different perspective on MOVE and the events of the 1985 bombing of their compound. His story is that of a writer Cudjoe who returns to Philadelphia after ten years to look for a child who was a survivor of the fire. His story is one of pain, sadness and anxiety over the events of the bombing and how residents of the Cobbs Creek area of Philadelphia dealt with the bombing and fire that consumed 65 houses in the area. Philadelphia Fire tells the story of Cudjoe’s search, but I wonder if it is the search for Cudjoe’s childhood, his past or his identity.

    Philadelphia Fire is not a book that is read, it is a book that is experienced. MOVE was not a militant group, but they were unique in cultural movements in that they believed in animal rights, environmentalism and obviously, communal living. Even if you aren’t familiar with MOVE or the 1985 bombing, His alter ego Cudjoe is searching for a young boy who cannot be found, as many young African-American boys. Wideman depicts the pain and loss of his generation and shows us how those touched by the bombing, cultural conflicts and racism managed at the time. I wonder what would happen today in the era of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. Perhaps MOVE, whose priorities were non-violent for the most part would still be with us. Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman is a tremendous gift to make us think about how we want to approach race relations.

    Philadelphia Fire is simply an excellent experience. I would like to thank the author, Scribner and Edelweiss+ for the advance reader copy. I have voluntarily left this review.
    4 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2018
    Great read
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 29, 2015
    Bought it as a gift
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2013
    Hard reading it is not clear if the author is talking about about the bombing/fire or some sort of misconcieved mental concept. Really a disappointment. Read the 100 pages and decided it was a waste of time and not worth the headache it was giving me.
    5 people found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2017
    forced to read this book for school. so boring
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2021
    Having read Brothers and Keepers in college, I bought this book as soon as it was published. And I didn't read it until this year, which is probably for the best because this novel is unconventional, challenging, asymmetrical, and fascinating. There's really no main character (the character of Cudjoe dominates but it's hard to say he's the point of the novel). None of the dialog uses quotation marks. The opening scene is a bit of a mystery. The closing scene leaves you wondering. Mystery abounds in each segment of the book. So many topics are introduced and examined -- being Black in America, urban politics, art, literature, sports, sex, growing up, growing old -- and then the story, if you can call it that, moves on.

    And it is lyrical and provoking, fun and unsettling, like a maze in which you are both lost and having a good time. I couldn't stop reading, even though there were parts where I was less reading the words than letting them flow through me.

    Would I recommend this book? Only to someone who can approach it with an open mind, few expectations, and a willingness to just listen.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Reviewed in the United States on December 26, 2015
    I had to read this for school and it was just the author's voice that made me confused. Plus history is warped. Some of what he written is untrue.
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Mauro Persic
    2.0 out of 5 stars Arty for art sake
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 6, 2024
    Very pretentious style, stretched allegories, artificial trains of thoughts. Hard read that doesn’t flow and is a pain to keep track of the narrative. Regretting to get involved in this one

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