December 21, 2010

Lewis & Clark literary scholars’ publication makes top fiction list for 2010

A major text published by two Lewis & Clark literary scholars has been named to NPR’s list of The Year’s Best Outsider Fiction.

Three Days Before the Shooting: The Unfinished Second Novel by Ralph Ellison, which was co-edited by Morgan S. Odell Professor of Humanities John Callahan and Adam Bradley ’96, has been named to NPR’s list of The Year’s Best Outsider Fiction.

At his death in 1994, Ralph Ellison left behind roughly two thousand pages of his unfinished second novel, which he had spent nearly four decades writing. Intended to follow his masterpiece, Invisible Man, this new novel gathers together in one volume, for the first time, the various parts of Ellison’s planned opus.

In order to bring Three Days Before the Shooting… to life, Callahan, the literary executor for Ellison’s estate, enlisted the help of his former student Adam Bradley. Together, Callahan and Bradley sorted through Ellison’s collected notes, files, and manuscript pages.

Published by Random House, the novel was released in January 2010. Learn more about the national media attention the publication received.