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Audiobook14 hours
Juneteenth: A Novel
Written by Ralph Ellison
Narrated by Joe Morton
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
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About this audiobook
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
"[A]n 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.
"[A]n 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.
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Reviews for Juneteenth
Rating: 3.4344263409836064 out of 5 stars
3.5/5
61 ratings1 review
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Juneteenth is Ralph Ellison's posthumous follow-up to Invisible Man. It's about a senator, Bliss, who is shot on the senate floor, and the African-American man, Hickman, who raised him. It's also about identity and how the way we identify ourselves affects our actions and how we treat others. Despite having been raised by African-Americans, Bliss grows up to become a racist, white senator. Once he decides to be white, this influences the future actions of his life, which leads to the assassination attempt.The book alternates between first person from Bliss's point of view, to first person from Hickman's point of view, to third person. It also alternates from detailing the present relationship between Bliss and Hickman by his hospital bed to the past as told by Hickman and remembered by Bliss. This enables Ellison to tell the story from all sides and give the reader greater insight as to how the characters developed to become who they were. This aspect of the novel potentially could have made for a frustrating and incomprehensible read, but Ellison does a wonderful job of sequencing and pacing the story so that it is easy for the reader to understand the story as Ellison intended it.The book also has resonance in the twenty-first century despite the fact that Ellison began writing it in the late 1950s. We can all relate to how our sense of identity and our circumstance can influence who we are and who we could become. Sure, the twenty-first century American reader may take civil rights for granted nearly fifty years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964; however, this doesn't make the overarching themes of identity and circumstance any less relevant. This is still and enjoyable and enlightening read regardless of the many changes since it was written.