"Our Time" is a family history written by John Edgar Wideman, generally telling problems of writing about the "real" world while trying "to understand his brother, their relationship, where they came from, where they are going." (Wideman 751) Robby Wideman, embraced a path common for black men during that era: a life of crime, glamour, and drugs. While sitting in jail, he reminisces deeply about his troubled past and the consequences of the future that now haunt him. John, on the other hand, chose the path less taken by those living in the same world; he went to school and was highly educated.Wideman's method of writing will be addressed, and analysis of his rhetorical strategies will show how he works out the problems of doing justice to the real past.
             In "Our Time" Wideman uses both rhetorical strategies and devices familiar to readers such as ethos and pathos. He would describe each incident in detail to get certain emotional reaction from us. He was very clear about how he wanted us to feel. Wideman writes as an essayist at times, and at other times, like a storyteller. There were sections that seem to be spoken by different people, but he remains the author of the book-the major collector, shaper, and writer, and the only one who speaks in the third person about his brother. Wideman uses three voices and three events to tell his brother, Robby's, story.
             Wideman makes a point of explaining the writing process and relating this to the issue of the book's truthfulness. While some authors confidently claim that they had faithfully inscribed their subjects' stories just as they were reported, Wideman repeatedly questions his ability to listen adequately: "I was a double rookie. A beginner at this kind of intimacy, a beginner at trying to record it.[...] I had to depend on my brother's instincts,
             his generosity. I had to listen" (770). This passage also reveals John's troubling...