SOURCE: "The Shape of Memory in John Edgar Wideman's Sent for You Yesterday," in Black American Literature Forum, Vol. 20, Nos. 1-2, Spring/Summer, 1986, pp. 143-50.

Bennion is an American educator and critic. In the following essay, he illustrates the role memory plays in shaping the narrative of Sent for You Yesterday.

Wideman's Sent for You Yesterday has a nontraditional form; the stories of Cassina Way sit "timeless, intimidating, fragile." The plot structure is nonlinear, with time looping rhythmically and point of view shifting rapidly. Readers know about events before they happen; they experience scenes through one character, then reexperience them through another; time moves forward and backward until the characters' comings and goings merge. In addition, deeply introspective language, repeated metaphors, and symbiotic relationships between living and dead characters keep readers stretching to apprehend the book. Like the soap bubble caught in Freeda's fingers, the novel trembles between...