SOURCE: Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. “We Are Neighbors, We Are Strangers.” New York Times Book Review (10 December 1989): 1, 30-1.

In the following review, Schaeffer surveys the dominant themes of the stories in Fever: Twelve Stories.

Images of blindness, of masks, of facades, of mirrors, of reflections, dominate Fever [Fever: Twelve Stories], this strange and powerful book of 12 short stories by John Edgar Wideman. Mr. Wideman's characters seek glimpses of their own faces in other people's eyes, in cups of coffee, in the surfaces of newly polished shoes. It is as if all of them were confused by the face, the mask, which is either white or black, the difference in color seeming to signify difference where no difference exists.

Mr. Wideman is best known for his Homewood Trilogy—a collection of short fiction and two novels based on the black Pittsburgh neighborhood of his childhood. He is also the author...