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 specialists, whom he neither ignores nor flatters. To assume the former audience was familiar with every work Wideman ever penned would have been pretentious. Instead, Coleman furnishes more than ample descriptive criticism and background information, avoiding the cryptic allusiveness that is favored by some academic critics but that discourages 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.