Throughout his career, Wideman has been perceived as a serious, important interpreter of the African-American experience in America. He has examined issues ranging from the deterioration of African-American urban life, the meaning of being an African-American man, and the role that violence plays in American life. Many of these issues are raised in Fever, Wideman's second collection of short stories, which was published in 1989.

These stories all deal with suffering, death, the failure of communication, and the quest for redemption. Wideman, however, sees "Fever" as "the key story, the pivotal story." In an interview with Judith Rosen of Publishers Weekly in 1989 he explained: "I see the others as refractions of the material gathered there. All the stories are about a kind of illness or trouble in the air. People aren't talking to one another or are having a difficult time talking to one another. There's misunderstanding...