How do you tell a story of a boy who was raised right but turned out wrong? Do you focus on key events during the course of his life, or do you examine his life in sequence from birth? In his compelling essay “Our Time”, John Edgar Wideman has the responsibility of telling the story of the boy who turned out wrong. . The boy is Widman’s younger brother and black sheep of the family …showed first 75 words of 1286 total…

…showed last 75 words of 1286 total…growing up on the right side of the track who ends up being a junkie, thief, and convicted murderer. Does this cleanse the guilt he has for not being there for his brother? Does it make up for it? No, I don’t think it does, because it shouldn’t take a tragedy to bring a family closer together. Wideman writes a great essay about his brother, but as a brother he was not great.