One of John Wideman’s most ambitious and celebrated works, the lyrical masterpiece and PEN/Faulkner winner inspired by the 1985 police bombing of the West Philadelphia row house owned by black liberation group Move. In 1985, police bombed a West Philadelphia row house owned by the Afrocentric cult known as Move, killing eleven people and starting a fire that destroyed sixty other houses. At the … other houses. At the heart of Philadelphia Fire is Cudjoe, a writer and exile who returns to his old neighborhood after spending a decade fleeing from his past, and who becomes obsessed with the search for a lone survivor of the event: a young boy seen running from the flames.
Award-winning author John Edgar Wideman brings these events and their repercussions to shocking life in this seminal novel. “Reminiscent of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man” (Time) and Norman Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song, Philadelphia Fire is a masterful, culturally significant work that takes on a major historical event and takes us on a brutally honest journey through the despair and horror of life in urban America.
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Philadelphia Fire is about the police bombing of residence of the afro-centric cult known as Move. The group has been a fixture in the city for many years, and this was not the first time that the city attempted to remove the group from West Philadelphia. Philadelphia Fire is the story of Cudjoe, who returns to Philadelphia to search for one of the survivors of the police bombing of the MOVE compound.
I have to admit I came to Philadelphia Fire from a unique perspective. I had lived at 32nd and Powelton when I was in college and the MOVE compound was around the corner at 311 N 33rd. They didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother them until one summer morning I left my apartment for work and happened to look down the street towards 33rd. What I saw that summer morning was lines of police vehicles, backhoes and bulldozers ready to have the MOVE members vacate their residence under court order.
By the time I got home, the shoot-out was over and the residence was gone. There were rats as big as cats running all over the block and the rooftops of the apartments on the block. And yet, this is only one side of the story with one small glimpse into the conflict that MOVE members had with the city of Philadelphia and it’s leaders.
As for the 1985 bombing, I watched it on TV like everyone else.I was very far removed from the events and the struggle of the MOVE members.
Wideman gives us an important, and different perspective on MOVE and the events of the 1985 bombing of their compound. His story is that of a writer Cudjoe who returns to Philadelphia after ten years to look for a child who was a survivor of the fire. His story is one of pain, sadness and anxiety over the events of the bombing and how residents of the Cobbs Creek area of Philadelphia dealt with the bombing and fire that consumed 65 houses in the area. Philadelphia Fire tells the story of Cudjoe’s search, but I wonder if it is the search for Cudjoe’s childhood, his past or his identity.
Philadelphia Fire is not a book that is read, it is a book that is experienced. MOVE was not a militant group, but they were unique in cultural movements in that they believed in animal rights, environmentalism and obviously, communal living. Even if you aren’t familiar with MOVE or the 1985 bombing, His alter ego Cudjoe is searching for a young boy who cannot be found, as many young African-American boys. Wideman depicts the pain and loss of his generation and shows us how those touched by the bombing, cultural conflicts and racism managed at the time. I wonder what would happen today in the era of Black Lives Matter and George Floyd. Perhaps MOVE, whose priorities were non-violent for the most part would still be with us. Philadelphia Fire by John Edgar Wideman is a tremendous gift to make us think about how we want to approach race relations.
Philadelphia Fire is simply an excellent experience. I would like to thank the author, Scribner and Edelweiss+ for the advance reader copy. I have voluntarily left this review.