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From the author of the classic novel Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison's Juneteenth is a powerful and brilliantly crafted tale that explores themes of identity, race, and ambition.
"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time
The story follows Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting senator, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he calls for Alonzo Hickman, an old Black minister, to be by his side as he faces a mortal wound. As the two men intimately share their stories and memories, the true shape and substance of the past begin to emerge.
Here is Ellison, a virtuoso of American vernacular—the preacher’s hyperbole and the politician’s rhetoric, the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech—at the height of his powers, telling a moving, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.
With an introduction and additional notes by John F. Callahan, who first compiled Juneteenth out of thousands of manuscript pages in 1999, and a preface by National Book Award-winning author Charles R. Johnson.
“Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"[A] stunning achievement. . . . Ellison sought no less than to create a Book of Blackness, a literary composition of the tradition at its most sublime and fundamental."—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Time
The story follows Adam Sunraider, a race-baiting senator, whose life takes an unexpected turn when he calls for Alonzo Hickman, an old Black minister, to be by his side as he faces a mortal wound. As the two men intimately share their stories and memories, the true shape and substance of the past begin to emerge.
Here is Ellison, a virtuoso of American vernacular—the preacher’s hyperbole and the politician’s rhetoric, the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech—at the height of his powers, telling a moving, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century.
With an introduction and additional notes by John F. Callahan, who first compiled Juneteenth out of thousands of manuscript pages in 1999, and a preface by National Book Award-winning author Charles R. Johnson.
“Beautifully written and imaginatively conceived, Juneteenth, like Invisible Man, deserves to be read and reread by generations.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
17 Reviews
3.5
Jae Bull
Created 2 months agoShare
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Shep
Created 3 months agoShare
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“It’s a bit of a challenge to review a book like this, that was unfinished at the time of the author’s death and assembled from some 2000 pages of writing and notes into a novel. I think it was very well put together, but it felt at times like a little connective tissues was missing between scenes. It was so good it made me long for a version that was fully realized by the author.
The prose was phenomenal, soaring in wild flights of fancy and wallowing in the dirt. His command of register and style to evoke time place and the mental states of his characters is remarkable. And this is a book about mental states. And race. With Ellison you have to expect you’ll be immersed in questions of race and America.
It’s a slower read; it takes its time making its points and throwing out layers of symbolism and metaphor. This is not a book to rush through. It doesn’t have much in the way of plot. A shooting at the start is just the inciting incident, bringing the white (presenting at least) anti-black senator to the hospital where he asks for the black preacher who raised him as a child. There isn’t even much conversation between them, they’re largely lost in private reflections. Some of these reflections are confused, scattered and largely symbolic, as the dying senator fades in and out of lucidity. Although we are given many scenes of the senator’s childhood, there’s a lot left unspoken about how we got here from there; there’s a huge contrast between who the senator seems to be now, and the tender young preacher he was being raised as.
There’s a lot that could be said about themes and historical parallels, but I’d like to do a lot more personal thinking (and some additional reading) about this book, and even reread it before I’d feel like I had anything worth saying on that kind of front. If you have the patience and compassion for a book like this, it is well worth your while.”
Nicole Solomon
Created about 1 year agoShare
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Maria Hammon
Created over 2 years agoShare
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Suzie
Created over 2 years agoShare
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About Ralph Ellison
Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma City in 1914. He is the author of the novel Invisible Man (1952), winner of the National Book Award and one of the most important and influential American novels of the twentieth century, as well as numerous essays and short stories. He died in New York City in 1994.
John F. Callahan is Morgan S. Odell Professor of Humanities at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He is the editor of the Modern Library edition of The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison and is literary executor of Ralph Ellison's estate.
John F. Callahan is Morgan S. Odell Professor of Humanities at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon. He is the editor of the Modern Library edition of The Collected Essays of Ralph Ellison and is literary executor of Ralph Ellison's estate.
Other books by Ralph Ellison
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