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Lost Brothers How can two brothers lead such different lives? “Brothers and Keepers”, a novel by John Edgar Wideman, explores the dissimilar paths that he and his younger brother of ten years, Robby, take that has led them to drastically different places in this world. John Edgar Wideman was a middle-class college professor at the University of Wyoming with a wife and kids and his brother Robby ended up serving a life sentence for murder at Western Penitentiary in Pittsburgh. John Wideman feels a great void in his relationship with is brother and tries to begin a new relationship with him now that he is in jail. He visits Robby in prison and listens to his stories, about why and how he ended up where he is. The novel entails the story of how Robby ended up in prison, but also explores Wideman’s own struggle with himself, his relationship with is brother, and his relationship with his past. John Edgar Wideman felt detached from his brother Robby. Wideman was ashamed that his family lived in the ghetto and after he left that ghetto, he separated himself from it.