Hoop Roots

by John Edgar Wideman

Book Overview

A multilayered memoir of basketball, family, home, love, and race, John Edgar Wideman's Hoop Roots brings a touch of Proust to the blacktop (Time) as it tells of the author's love for a game he can no longer play. Beginning with the scruffy backlot playground he discovered in Pittsburgh some fifty years ago, Wideman works magical riffs that connect black music, language, culture, and sport. His voice modulates from nostalgic to outraged, from scholarly...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618257756
• ISBN13: 9780618257751
• Release Date: February 2003
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Not for the low brow...

May be the best novel about the inner experience of an aging athlete. An autobiographical novel by an accomplished writer and a complex man, Hoop Roots is a challenging read. Wideman demands something of his audience, a rarity these days, and those looking for a mindless basketball book will likely not be up to the task. As in his other books, Wideman occasionally gets carried away with his command of complex language, and some passages are a struggle even for the most commited readers. However, overall this is a first rate novel, by a first rate writer, on a subject with which he is singularly expert.

Spellbinding

OK, after reading the previously posted review, I admit that I am one of those readers who will read ANYTHING by John Wideman, regardless of subject- but I disagree that this book has too much roots and too little hoops. This book is fantastic. Wideman manages to discuss basketball- its history, its present, its future, and at the same time discuss race, love, music- all so eloquently that I often had to put the book down and absorb. The various stories of his family members make me wonder how John and his talented daughter Jamila managed to come out on top, when his brother and his son are so mired in tragedy. John Wideman is the best writer alive in America- I am convinced- and this book is an absolute masterpiece.