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Ralph Ellison, The Invinsible Man, Perhaps?

© Tracy Roberts

Ralph Ellison, author of The Invisible Man, which has been touted as one of the most influential writings of this century, is back at it again. Well, sort of.

In 1994, Ellison passed away leaving a story untold and incomplete. Some forty years later it has been labeled Juneteenth by John F. Callahan, Ellison's literary executor.

To wear the name, Ralph Ellison's Literary Executor, proves to be more than just a label but a job. The work on Juneteenth began with months of sorting ten boxes of manuscript papers, scribbled envelopes and up to 25 various approaches to individual scenes. All without one hint from Ellison, himself.

Undoubtedly during this time, Callahan was well aware of the elements he was up against. Would he survive tomatos in the face from fans of Ellison who would argue that the book fails to walk in the masterful footsteps of The Invisible Man? There are also the critics who devalue ghostly attempts to complete the works of literary legends. The last group Callahan had to contend with would be the average reader who can not be catagorized in either group and may declare Juneteenth as a flop in it's own right.

Juneteenth is a novel set in the 1950s. While addressing Congress, the main character, US Senator Sunraider is shot. With his black foster father by his hospial bedside the two recall memories of the good and bad sort.

Sunraider ponders over his own past. Some of which Ellison manages to sidestep such as Sunraider's race and the identity of his father. It is known that Sunraider is the child of a white woman and is taken in by a jazz musician named Hickman. The musician raises the young boy and becomes a man of the cloth. The two begin to deliver call and response type sermons to a congregation as a father-son duo.

Eventually, the young man, at the time known as Bliss, abandons Hickman and his name to becom Movie Man, a film maker slash con artist. In the hospital, Sunraider teeders between memories of playmates, co-hosting revivals at the age of six to his love affair with a beautiful black woman and other recollections of his adulthood.

Look for a review of this book at a later date.

This novel politely lingers away from the political and socio-educational elements in The Invisible Man. Perhaps that's is why this novel has taken so long. Ellison had refrained from taking a outspoken stance, as James Baldwin did on civil rights issues.