Juneteenth : a novel
(Book)

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Published
New York : Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021., , ©1999.
ISBN
0593314611, 9780593314616
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LocationCall NumberStatus
Downers Grove Public Library - 2nd Floor - AdultFICTION ELLISON, R.On Shelf
Glen Ellyn Public Library - Adult FictionFIC ELLISON, RALPHOn Shelf
Homewood Public Library District - StacksCLASSIC JOn Shelf
River Forest Public Library - StacksCLASSICS ELLISONOn Shelf

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Published
New York : Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021., , ©1999.
Format
Book
Physical Desc
xliii, 370 pages ; 21 cm
Language
English
ISBN
0593314611, 9780593314616

Notes

Description
In Washington, D.C., in the 1950s, Adam Sunraider, a senator from New England, is mortally wounded by an assassin's bullet while making a speech on the Senate floor. To the shock of all who think they know him, Sunraider calls out from his deathbed for Alonzo Hickman, an old black minister, to be brought to his side. The reverend is summoned; the two are left alone. “Tell me what happened while there's still time,” demands the dying Sunraider. Out of their conversation, and the inner rhythms of memories whose weight has been borne in silence for many long years, a story emerges. Senator Sunraider, once known as Bliss, was raised by Reverend Hickman in a black community steeped in religion and music (not unlike Ralph Ellison's own childhood home) and was brought up to be a preaching prodigy in a joyful black Baptist ministry that traveled throughout the South and the Southwest. Together one last time, the two men retrace the course of their shared life in an “anguished attempt,” Ellison once put it, “to arrive at the true shape and substance of a sundered past and its meaning.” In the end, the two men confront their most painful memories, memories that hold the key to understanding the mysteries of kinship and race that bind them, and to the senator's confronting how deeply estranged he had become from his true identity. In Juneteenth, Ralph Ellison evokes the rhythms of jazz and gospel and ordinary speech to tell a powerful tale of a prodigal son in the twentieth century. At the time of his death in 1994, Ellison was still expanding his novel in other directions, envisioning a grand, perhaps multivolume, story cycle. Always, in his mind, the character Hickman and the story of Sunraider's life from birth to death were the dramatic heart of the narrative. And so, with the aid of Ellison's widow, Fanny, his literary executor, John Callahan, has edited this magnificent novel at the center of Ralph Ellison's forty-year work in progress-its author's abiding testament to the country he so loved and to its many unfinished tasks.--,Amazon.com

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Citations

APA Citation, 7th Edition (style guide)

Ellison, R., Callahan, J. F., & Johnson, C. (2021). Juneteenth: a novel (First Vintage International edition.). Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Chicago / Turabian - Author Date Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Ellison, Ralph, John F. Callahan and Charles Johnson. 2021. Juneteenth: A Novel. Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Chicago / Turabian - Humanities (Notes and Bibliography) Citation, 17th Edition (style guide)

Ellison, Ralph, John F. Callahan and Charles Johnson. Juneteenth: A Novel Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021.

MLA Citation, 9th Edition (style guide)

Ellison, Ralph, John F. Callahan, and Charles Johnson. Juneteenth: A Novel First Vintage International edition., Vintage Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 2021.

Note! Citations contain only title, author, edition, publisher, and year published. Citations should be used as a guideline and should be double checked for accuracy. Citation formats are based on standards as of August 2021.

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