Three Days Before the Shooting . . . The Unfinished Second Novel

Ellison, Ralph

ISBN 10: 0375759530 / ISBN 13: 9780375759536

Published by Modern Library, New York, 2010

About this Item

Boards and book spine are near-fine, DJ has strike mark thru barcode on lower back panel.; A bright, solid book, dustjacket in Mylar, unclipped.; Large 8vo 9" - 10" tall; 1136 pages; "At his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind roughly two thousand pages of his unfinished second novel, which he had spent nearly four decades writing. Long awaited, it was to have been the work Ellison intended to follow his masterpiece, Invisible Man. Five years later, Random House published Juneteenth, drawn from the central narrative of Ellisonâ s unfinished epic. 'Three Days Before the Shooting . . .' gathers together in one volume, for the first time, all the parts of that planned opus, including three major sequences never before published. Set in the frame of a deathbed vigil, the story is a gripping multigenerational saga centered on the assassination of the controversial, race-baiting U.S. senator Adam Sunraider, whoâ s being tended to by â Daddyâ Hickman, the elderly black jazz musician turned preacher who raised the orphan Sunraider as a light-skinned black in rural Georgia. Presented in their unexpurgated, provisional state, the narrative sequences form a deeply poetic, moving, and profoundly entertaining book, brimming with humor and tension, composed in Ellisonâ s magical jazz-inspired prose style and marked by his incomparable ear for vernacular speech.".

Seller Inventory # 22118

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Three Days Before the Shooting . . . The Unfinished Second Novel
• Publisher: Modern Library, New York
• Publication Date: 2010
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375759530
• ISBN 13: 9780375759536
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Thus; First Printing.
• Condition: Near Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+
• Seller catalogs:
  • FICTION

About this title

Synopsis

An extraordinary book, a work of staggering virtuosity. With its publication, a giant world of literature has just grown twice as tall.--Newsday From Ralph Ellison--author of the classic novel of African-American experience, Invisible Man--the long-awaited second novel. Here is the master of American vernacular--the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech--at the height of his powers, telling a powerful, evocative tale of a prodigal of the twentieth century. Tell me what happened while there's still time, demands the dying Senator Adam Sunraider to the itinerate Negro preacher whom he calls Daddy Hickman. As a young man, Sunraider was Bliss, an orphan taken in by Hickman and raised to be a preacher like himself. Bliss's history encompasses the joys of young southern boyhood; bucolic days as a filmmaker, lovemaking in a field in the Oklahoma sun. And behind it all lies a mystery: how did this chosen child become the man who would deny everything to achieve his goals? Brilliantly crafted, moving, wise, Juneteenth is the work of an American master.

About the Author

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.