The Selected Letters of Ralph Ellison

Starred review from September 2, 2019
Callahan, Ellison’s literary executor, and Conner (The Poetry of James Joyce Reconsidered, editor), offer a generous edition of the Invisible Man author’s previously unpublished letters from 1933 to 1993. Arranged by decades, the book traces Ellison’s path from college student to budding writer, renowned author, and elder statesman, with Callahan providing compact but informative introductions to each segment. The letters’ recipients are diverse: Some are family—notably, Ellison’s mother, Ida­—while others are old friends from his birthplace, Oklahoma City, and college friends from his alma mater, Tuskegee Institute, with whom he remained in touch even as his circle grew to encompass such well-known writers as Langston Hughes and Saul Bellow. Ellison’s many letters to Richard Wright and Albert Murray are the most intimate, about matters personal, professional, and political. He candidly discusses with Wright, in August 1945, his break with the Communist Party, and in June 1951, updates Murray on the progress of Invisible Man, writing: “I cut out 200 pages myself and got it down to 606.” The collection also touches on Ellison’s second, never-finished novel, and on the devastating 1967 fire which destroyed much of it. A splendid, indeed exemplary, collection, this is a remarkable historic document crafted with great scholarly acumen. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, Wylie Agency.

September 1, 2019

Ellison, best known as the author of the novel Invisible Man (1952), is a master of the dying form of epistolary writing, as amply illustrated in this generous selection of letters from 1933 to 1993, edited by Ellison's literary executor Callahan (Odell Professor of Humanities, Lewis and Clark Univ.) and Connor (The Aesthetics of Toni Morrison). Whether writing to his peers such as Richard Wright, Saul Bellow, Albert Murray, or Stanley Edgar Hyman, or addressing his mother; his wife, actress Rose Poindexter; or lifelong friends from Oklahoma City, Ellison never fails to be entertaining or illuminating. One of the most insightful entries, to his former teacher at Tuskegee University, Morteza Sprague, dated May 19, 1954, speaks poignantly on the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision mandating the end of school segregation. Numerous correspondence revolves around Invisible Man, as well as the fitful composition of Ellison's unfinished second novel, Juneteenth, which he worked on for nearly 40 years. VERDICT An invaluable volume for Ellison scholars and recommended for all readers interested in American literature.--L.J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2019
A rich collection reveals a writer's aspirations and frustrations. Drawing primarily on an extensive trove of correspondence at the Library of Congress, Callahan (Emeritus, Humanities/Lewis and Clark Coll. In the African American Grain: Call and Response in 20th Century Black Fiction, 2008, etc.), Ellison's literary executor, and Conner (English/Washington and Lee Univ.; editor: The Poetry of James Joyce Reconsidered, 2012, etc.) have created a model of scholarship in their volume of letters by acclaimed African American writer Ralph Ellison (1913-1994), author of the 1953 National Book Award winner, Invisible Man. Organized by decade beginning in the 1930s, the letters are contextualized by a comprehensive general introduction, a focused introduction to each chapter, and informative footnotes where needed; a detailed chronology appends the volume. Ellison's long, candid letters trace his transformation from a "savvy and street-smart" kid born and raised in Oklahoma to a sophisticated world traveler, award-winning author, college professor, and literary celebrity. As he worked on essays, stories, and his first novel, Ellison revealed his ambition to change public consciousness. To Gotham Book Mart owner Frances Steloff, he cited Bernard Shaw's plays, which he read as a teenager, as a decisive influence, especially the prefaces, which illuminated "the relationship between ideas, art, and politics." "Frankly, we are angry," he wrote to a friend in 1939, but the prominence of figures such as Richard Wright and Langston Hughes was proof that African American authors "have overcome the cultural and intellectual isolation" that, until recently, they experienced. Ellison's cultural landscape expanded vastly when he was in residence at the American Academy in Rome in 1955: "Ruins, architecture, art, palaces, churches and graveyards, my head is whirling with it all." Surely, he said, "human aspiration found its most magnificent expression here." Among Ellison's many literary correspondents was Saul Bellow, with whom he felt aesthetic camaraderie. Together, he wrote in 1959, "we're moving toward an emancipation of our fiction from the clichés of recent styles and limitations of conception." An impressively edited volume commemorates a canonical literary figure.

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November 1, 2019
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