"Ralph Ellison: A Biography"

Book Review

"...with the music of Bach playing softly, and with Fanny snuggled tightly against Ralph on the hospital bed, Callahan saw a single tear roll slowly down his cheek. Then he was gone."

"Ralph Ellison" quickly caught my eye on the shelf in the Library's "New Book" section. Picking it up, I discovered "A Biography" in small print. I picture Mr. Ellison looking down from heaven today at Jena, Louisiana with that single tear rolling down his cheek, shrugging his shoulder, turning to walk away sadly shaking his head. "Ralph Ellison: A Biography" published in 2007 by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. written by Arnold Rampersad, is in a word: thorough. Writing this book was obviously a labor of love to Mr. Rampersad.

The very thoroughness of the book made it a labor for me to read. This is not a book you want to borrow from the library; this is the kind of book you want to buy for your home library, to read slowly over a period of time. "Ralph Ellison: A Biography" is more than a biography; it is a lesson in history of 1900s United States of America. There is a dispute of Mr. Ellison's birth year, but he was born just about the time Oklahoma became the 46th state to join the Union. His parents had rushed to the new territory, like many, to stake claims under a new government homesteading law. Freed slaves and their ancesters that were tired of being mistreated in the Southern states saw it as an opportunity to start anew as equal citizens with other settlers.

Named, Ralph Waldo Ellison, because of his father's love of Ralph Waldo Emerson, it might seem the young Ellison was destined to become a noteworthy author. This biography painstakingly shows the years of struggle that went into the writing of "Invisible Man" which won him "The National Book Award" in 1953. Black and white television was in it's infancy in 1953, and at the time Mr. Ellison would be considered a Negro writer. Among his competition for the award was Ernest Hemmingway's "The Old Man and the Sea". He had indeed written something noteworthy. The novel, "Invisible Man" made a profound impression upon me, when I read it many years later in the late 1960s.