In this first-ever collection of nonfiction by John Edgar Wideman, a “towering figure in American literature” (The Nation), five decades of cultural and literary criticism paint a vivid portrait of America’s changing landscape and chronicle the emergence and evolution of a generational talent.“Wideman is a writer of titanic skill.”

In 1953, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, a baby boy was born--dead. The attending physician set his little body aside and tended to his mother for eighteen minutes. Now, more than sixty years later, that boy leads an internationally known ministry that encourages hundreds of thousands every year. The Boy Born Dead tells his incredible story from the perspective of his best friend, David Wideman.As a teenager in the small town of Liberty, Missouri, in the late 1960s, David Ring grew up with the cha...

“Master of language” (The New York Times) John Edgar Wideman uses his unique generational position to explore what he calls the “slaveroad,” offering “a fresh perspective of slavery’s impact and a confirmation of Wideman’s exalted status in American letters” (New York magazine).John Edgar Wideman’s Slaveroad is a groundbreaking work of “bruising candor and obsessive originality” (The Wall Street Journal). For centuries, ...

**The #1 New York Times bestselling account of a neurosurgeon's own near-death experience—**for readers of 7 Lessons from Heaven.Thousands of people have had near-death experiences, but scientists have argued that they are impossible. Dr. Eben Alexander was one of those scientists. A highly trained neurosurgeon, Alexander knew that NDEs feel real, but are simply fantasies produced by brains under extreme stress.Then, Dr. A...