James W. Coleman`s book on John Edgar Wideman`s literary career addresses the needs of a general, if well-read, public rather than the esoteric vanities of scholarly special-ists, whom he neither ignores nor flatters. To assume the former audience was familiar with every work Wideman ever penned would have been pretentious. Instead, Cole- man furnishes more than ample descriptive criticism and background information, avoiding the cryptic allusiveness that is favored by some academic critics but that dis-courages the undergraduate audience he likely envisioned. Unfortunately, this accent on bringing serious Wideman criticism to a broader audience often frustrates the reader who wishes that announced themes, techniques, and stylistic devices would not whisk by as quickly as world capitals on a seven-day package tour of the globe.