I own two review copies of Arnold Rampersad's Ralph Ellison: A Biography (Knopf, 2007). And strange as it may be, I never got around to reading either copy.
Then recently I got the urge to read the book when I learned of the not-so-nice side of Ellison (1913-1994), whose novel Invisible Man won the National Book Award for fiction in 1953. Two black writers--Eddie Glaude, Jr. and Victor LaValle--mentioned their reaction to Rampersad's depiction of Ellison in the New York Times Book Review's Q & A feature, "By the Book."
Glaude, a professor at Princeton, after reading how Ellison treated his own mother and his longtime friend Albert Murray, the African-American writer and social critic, went from admiring him to despising him. Glaude said Ellison was "monstrous." (New York Times Book Review, July 25, 2021.)
The novelist LaValle admits he "love[s] reading about artists and their terrible childish ways." And that "Rampersad's biography of Ralph Ellison, while much less salacious than Kitty Kelley's [biography of Frank Sinatra], scratched that itch, too." (New York Times Book Review, March 26, 2023.)
So now reading the Ellison biography is a MUST so I can see what all the fuss is about.
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