And asked him if he would help me with this project in 1994. But i had wanted to write about ellisons work for a long time. And finally, in 1977, i wrote an essay on ellison, called the historical frequencies of ralph waldo ellison, and in this piece, i try to make the case that ellisons essays, and at that time, many others, some of them werent published at all, and many of the most compelling essays hadnt made it into shadow and act. Ralph says he used to say, society and morality in a novel, tell it like it is, baby, really unbelievably superb in original essays, were rejected for inclusion in shadow and act if you can believe it and i tracked these down and tried to make the case that invisible man his essays rather not only , provided a way to read invisible man but also more broadly provided a way to read American Literature as a continuing kind of engagement with the imperfect union of the declaration of independence, and the constitution and the sacred documents of abraham lincoln. Also, of the continuing struggle to perfect that union. I wrote the essay and i was pleased with it when it came out. We im always pleased with the things we write when theyre published. We get them and say yeah, i should have spent more time or maybe this one could have stayed in the box. But i was kind of pleased with it, and pleased enough to find ellisons address and send him the piece. A little note. Dear mr. Ellison, enclosed please find. That was the kind of texture of the note and rubbed my hands together. Thats that. Well, that wasnt that. About five weeks later, i got back a twopage, single spaced letter from ellison. He had read the piece and he liked it very much and he wanted to write me about it and talk about it. It was a warm letter, it was formal. Ralph and Fanny Ellison were warm people. He knew what manners was all about, manners had to do with both privacy and generosity. In any case, he end of the letter he said if youre ever in new york and have the time, mrs. Ellison and i would be glad to see you. Well, i restrained myself. I didnt go to the airport that night. I had the impulse to do it, i didnt do it. But i was in new york several months later and the ellisons invited me to come over and i wanted to tell a little bit about that meeting. It is so vivid in my mind. It was in may of 1978, and i remember taking a cab up to broadway and 150th really and Riverside Drive and passing a lilac, a flower stand, and seeing these great burgeoning bunches of lilacs. I asked the driver to wait. Got a bunch of lilacs. That was inspirational because the ellisons loved lilacs, they had lilacs in their summer place in the berkshires, and of course, mrs. Ellison beat ralph to the punch. Monthis the cruelest pulling lilacs out of the ground. I hadnt been thinking about that at all. In any case, they were warm and formal people. , esther ellison, missus ellison. So ralph ushered me into the into his study, and the study had it was all kind of one big old room, kitchen connected to the study, connected to the kind of little living room that had a magnificent view of the hudson. There was a very elegant italian marble table in the middle of the room, and there was a leather couch on either side of the table so ralph pointed out where the couch i was to sit and he sat across and we talked, 50 minutes or so, and you would never have known from this conversation that Ralph Ellison was a man, a jazz man of the vernacular from oklahoma, or that i was kind of a black irishman from up the line in new haven, connecticut. We talked as if they were inhabitants of one of the later novels of henry james, it was very pretentious. I glanced at my watch after a while, i was getting a little uncomfortable, if im honest with you, and why not be honest with you. Ralph at precisely five minutes to 5 00 this and came down on , the table, and he said, well, john, would you like a drink . I dont know about i needed a drink i think at that point, and but i was kind of dumber than invisible man. Thats kind of a hard thing to be, at least when we think about it, the invisible man in the early chapters. As i said, i said, why, yes, mister what . Sure, ralph, and then he did what he did so often and so fetchingly and charmingly, he lapsed into this oklahoma drawl and he said thats better, and he disappeared in the kitchen and emerged with a bottle of bourbon. I think it was jack daniels in a glass, and put it on his side of the table, and a bottle of irish. I think it was jameson in a glass and put it on mine. And we were off and became very, very Close Friends and i said, people over the years, long before ralph passed away, he said, well, what did they say about the reinhardt character in invisible man, john . What did he say about the second novel . And i tried as best i could to explain to him, that wasnt what our relationship was about. It was a friendship, and it was a friendship and i think adam perhaps will talk about this. Somehow, ralph has this pull on us all, whatever generation we were from. It was a very controlled paternal friendship. So you know, i wasnt there as a literally scholar at all. In any case, about 10 years later, after wed become very Close Friends, i was up visiting the ellisons in the berkshires, and ralph and i were taking a little walk and showing me his tractor. He loved gadgets, machines, and i said, ralph, id like to ask you something. Ive been wondering about it since we met. He said, why, yes . And i said, you know, ive always wondered about that damn Irish Whiskey that you brought out when we met. And he said, well, what, what are you wondering about, john . And i said ive always wondered what the hell you would have done with the Irish Whiskey if you hadnt liked me . And i thought that was pretty good, you know. I needed to draw a good card, but i thought i had a pair of jacks to at least open the poker game. Ralph looked at me, had these piercing brown eyes that would light up with hazel sparks, and so he just looked at me and shook his head and said, with more than a hint of disappointment, im afraid, for gods sake, john, i like Irish Whiskey too. You could not get Ralph Ellison with any of that kind of identity, politics, nonsense, you couldnt do it with those categories. Thats not where the man lives. He lived in another place. So we ask will Ralph Ellison and thats what i would say. Theres many other things to say as we go along. But he was a special kind of human being. He was a special kind of man. Ive never met his like. I havent met his like before or since. He had the most defiant imagination of anybody ive ever met, and mike spoke about this wonderful line of his. The true american is also somehow black, from ellisons Time Magazine essay in 1970 and i think i should say, this again ellison gave a whole new meaning to the term reversal. Theres such a thing as an ellisonan reversal. Time asked him to write an essay on what america would be like without blacks. So what does ellison do . He actually turns it inside out like so many of the jazz musicians, like davis and the others do with autumn leaves a sentimental tune and they make a gritty, harrowing piece of work. Well, ralph would do that over and over and over again. He would take ones expectations, he would take various american cliches and turn them inside out and bring us to a new place. Ok . Now, let me cut then to the novel and as mike pointed out, and you know, our adam and my editor, the Modern Library at random house, jonathan joll and i, we were all 3 very croup lust scrupulous about this and i hope that unlike juneteenth, those who read and comment on three days before the shooting will look at the title, because the title the subtitle of the book, is the unfinished second novel, and notice that first adjective. The unfinished second novel. That is in fact what we have published and we start from that. We make no apologies whatsoever about that. We try to turn that into a kind of opportunity. The opportunity that exists because of what ellison left behind, because he didnt finish the novel. An opportunity to do something that is rather special in american letters. About the a few words novel, about what we set out to do. It began aon with few days after ralph posey passing ralphs passing. We walked into the study and he was teeming with books and paper. The smokei could read from his unfinished cigars. His presence was very much there. Fanny said i hope you will help me. I want you to help me decide what to do with ralphs novel. And she gave me her very common sense, very acute bottom line on it. She said beginning, middle and end. Does it have a beginning, middle and end . That was the question that haunted me as i set to work on this novel and i thought for the longest time that i would find the fragments that would stitch together the various narratives, the typescripts and computer printouts. I looked and looked. And was some dirty socks i found ellisons earlier stories that fanny did not know existed. It was great. Put it into a book. Lected stories of Ralph Ellison. But i didnt find anything having to do with the second novel. It was all in fact down in the library of congress. The question was what to do and i wont rehearse simply say it seemed to me to be it was one of four principal narratives. It seemed to me the narrative that was closest to the bone of heme and the action of the novel. The relationship between bliss, little boy growing up to be senator adamss son later and reverend alonzo hickman, jazz man turned preacher. But it was very telescoped as the action took place after the assassination, when he calls hickman to come to his bedside in the hospital where he is fatally wounded and i knew from his notes that allison always ellison always intended to end the novel with the death of sun rader. On that basis, talking with mrs. Ellison as well, i concluded the best thing to do for ellisons readers was to present the book has juneteenth, a fragment. A narrative that was also a fragment. There was juneteenth. It was a close run decision. These decisions about posthumous work are always close run decisions. There are pros and cons and we learned that. I think there have been a number of posthumous additions published lately or in the works. So i said i will do that and we had been working some on all of these manuscripts and narratives, and particularly we are puzzling over the computer the printouts and adam did lot of special and important work with the computers, the disks and research into what kind of computers ellison had and when he bought them and what the capacities were and so on. What i said and i did at times regret saying this in print, basically promising and committing to bringing out it another edition of not the totality, there too many variants of too many episodes but bringing out the other narratives in a scholarly edition. That is what adam and i set out to do and that is what 3 days before the shooting is. It has six narrative is. Part i has book ii, a manuscript which was part of juneteenth but ellison had not put it into a book ii. Those are the typescript. That is part i. Part ii consists of two principal narratives from computer printouts. Hickman in washington in washington, d. C. That is where the focus is. We put that on there. Secondly hickman in georgia and oklahoma and then there is a very curious piece of work thac that he did on the computer and it was the last thing we found dated december 30, 1993. The actual last date of the composition. He was still an work on the novel in the next few months but there is no date. We cant date anything that precisely. So this is called mcintyre and it is a kind of a variant of chapter 12 of book one, the typescript of a book that he wrote many years ago. There it is. That is what this book consists of and also a selection of the notes. It consists of all eight of the excerpts from the second novel which he published during his lifetime. It consists of 10 or 12 variants of the opening of hickman in washington, d. C. The beginning of the novel and maybe adam will talk about this a little bit, so it shows the kind of compulsion ellison brought to this work and a compulsion to revise it and the tendency toward protectionism perfectionism which is both a blessing and a curse for ralph that he had as well. And a couple shorter drafts of the opening of book ii and then we have a general a couple of introductions, editorss introductions and editorss notes. Our decision was to let this book speak for itself. It is really not edited. We had some go arounds on this matter with our good publisher about copy editing but the copy editor who went about the task almost as if a living person said here is my book, i want the best book i can have so the copy editor set to work correcting grammar and style. Began three sentences in a row with and, we had to make all kinds of notations like a cadence. Leave it alone. We want the reader to choose. We want the reader to have a kind of conversation with these manuscripts and maybe if the reader is interested and attentive enough begin to bring to this unfinished novel his or her own sense about what ending might have been appropriate. And i want to close by two things. Saying something about what i think the providence, the thematic providence of this novel is, and then Say Something about adam and turn it over to adam. Invisible man is a novel of segregation in america. It comes out in 1952, and the principal is prophetic. Theres a foretelling. Ellison believed literature should engage in foretelling. Theres foretelling of the Civil Rights Movement of the end of the novel clearly is in an america still governed by plessey versus ferguson, separate but equal. This novel is the moment of the 1954, 1955. Novel is the brown vs. Board decision of 1954. I want to read a letter that ellison wrote right after he heard the decision come down. It is remarkable letter. It gets at what he is up to in this novel. His theme of the invasion of identity and its cost and its danger. So now the court has found in our favor and recognized our human psychological complexity and citizenship and another battle of the civil war has been won. The rest is up to us and i am very glad. The decision came when i was reading a stillness at appomattox and a study of the Negro Freedman and it made a heightening of emotion and telescoping of perspective, yes and a sense of the problems that , lie ahead that left me what d. Weteye i can see the whole room stretched out and all got mixed up with this book i am trying to write and left me twisted with joy and a sense of inadequacy. Why did i have to be a writer during a time when events sneer openly at your efforts, the fine define consciousness and form . Well so now the judges found , negros must be individuals and that is hopeful and good. What a Wonderful World of possibilities are unfolded for the children. For me theres still the problem of making meaning out of the past and i am lucky are described bledsoe before he was checked out. Now on writing about the invasion of identity which is another characteristic american problem which must be about to change. I hope so. It is giving me enough trouble. Anyway here is to integration, the only integration that counts, that of the personality. That letter to me is the best, most profound and that can be given to why Ralph Ellison did not finish this work. I am so proud to be here with adam, to introduce him, to have actually done this book to completion and to have been adams teacher and friend, colleague, collaborator over the years. Relationship and to say that i think one of the things about collaboration is have to keep each other honest or you dont have a collaboration and how can i agree . It requires a certain antagonistic cooperation. You kind of bump up against each other and along way the bruises become a rainbow maybe if you can handle that metaphor. In any case, it seems to me that the book like the book what we managed to do, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and certainly the best thing i can say is my heart is full being here with this book being published, here with adam and i would say without adam the book wouldnt exist. Adam was indispensable all the way through to this book so thank you and congratulations. [applause] john stall on my best lines so i have to give you my secondbest. Lets hope that is good enough. I first met Ralph Ellison when i was 19yearsold and he had already passed away. He hated ghost stories so that is not what this is. I met him as many of you did on the page. I met him in John Callahans africanAmerican Literature course, reading invisible man with a host of other great works of fiction but there was something about that novelette that novel that caught my attention. Something about it that spoke to me of my own story. Elson once said of invisible man that it is my novel but invisible mans memoir, the idea of a dual existence took on another existence, as i read it, i was reading what i thought was my own experience as a biracial kid growing up in utah without the black side of my community, finding myself more as an American Life to afford my own identity of parts that were somehow still missing but still emerging. So there was a moment in particular when he appeared to me, if you will. It was on the campus of lewis and Clark College which both of these men know quite well. Very close to president minis office where we requisitioned the entire space, the last table t table and spread out all the fragments of ellisons novel as it was emerging on the computer. John did something that looking back now i think what were you thinking . He gave me, a 19yearold sophomore the option to go up there and look at this material , sometimes being the third or fourth person who would ever seen it. Ellison, ellisons wife, john and finally me. Astounding thing to go from spanish class to reading a ellisons unpublished second novel. Mythic almost in its proportion. An astounding thing to have this opportunity. And i was ready for it because i was and ellison groupie by that point. I had read invisible man and he was my god. My guy. He was helping me to understand myself. He was helping me to understand literature. I was ready to be blown away. But then i saw something i never would have imagined from an author of this stature, something that forever changed the way that i would look at fiction both from the perspective of a teacher that i have become, the writer i have become and editor of this volume three