Ralph Ellison in Progress

Starred review from May 15, 2010
Bradley, a coeditor of Ellisons unfinished novel, Three Days before the Shooting, plumbs the long and arduous process Ellison employed in writing the highly acclaimed Invisible Man and his failure to complete his second novel. Bradley begins in the 1990s with Ellisons efforts to finish his second novel and moves backward through a promising career that saw huge changes in American racial politics and publishing. Ellison, who died in 1994, was one of the first major American writers to go digital, switching to a computer in 1982. Bradley argues that the move, rather than improving Ellisons productivity, only created more opportunities for revisions for an obsessive perfectionist. Sifting through 27 boxes of archival material, Bradley found evidence that Ellisons delays were less about psychological blocks (a 1967 fire destroyed much of his work) than artistic angst. Bradley compares the creation of both novels and Ellisons choices of plot and character development, reflecting Ellisons own struggles to come to terms with racial identity and individualism. This book adds enormously to the great pastime of analyzing why Ellison never finished his second novel and why he remains an acclaimed and enduring figure in American literature.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)