A review by robertlashley
Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison

4.0

If the novel's cobbled-together posthumous design hinders Ralph Ellison's storytelling power by two levels, then they are two levels that only 5 novelists in the English language ever had. The story here, of the trickster turned preacher Reverend Hickman and Bliss Hickman/Adam Sunraider, the abandoned white child he raises that ends up being a segregationist senator, has so much substance. Their dynamic is so often breathtaking. Embodying the tenants of the word one minute, selling a con the next, Hickman is a startling melange of light and shadow. In showing Bliss's transformation into Adam Sunraider without cant, the author shows how seductively devastating white supremacy can be in a series of painfully tragic episodes. Yes, it doesn't compete with the bildungsroman supernova that is Invisible Man, but it is another reminder that Ellison was a literary supernova