In one of Wideman’s new short stories, a black man tells us what it feels like to binge–watch Downton Abbey while enduring treatments for a disease that could be terminal.

Where to begin? Where else but the words. The first chapter of Slave Old Man, a small but richly layered, obsessive, lyrical novel written after the sprawling, Goncourt-winning Texaco, is named “Matter,” and that word comes to encompass a great deal.

When we realize that the imagined store of potential we have for our lives is always about to be measured in relation to what actually ends up happening, it can be difficult to live in the moment. What do we do when our minds cross the line from the present to an anticipation of what our experiences will mean for the future? The question can be especially thorny for writers, as Cheston Knapp shows in his debut essay collection Up Up, Down Down.