Three Days Before the Shooting...
Three Days Before the Shooting... (2010) is the title of the long form edited manuscript of Ralph Ellison's never-finished second novel. It was co-edited by John F. Callahan, the executor of Ellison's literary estate, and Adam Bradley, a professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles. The book was published on January 26, 2010, by Modern Library. Callahan had previously worked with Ellison's unfinished manuscripts to posthumously publish this work as Juneteenth (1999), a novel of nearly 400 pages. The title was from an excerpt published by Ellison in 1965. Background Ralph Ellison published his first novel, Invisible Man (1952) to great critical success. In 1953, it beat Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea to win the National Book Award. Following the success of Invisible Man, Ellison became one of the most respected writers in the country and prominent in many elite circles. Invisible Man sold so well that royalty checks provided financial security for the rest of Ellison's life. The stream of money meant that the release of a second novel would be a literary decision and not a financial one. Ellison spent the 42 years after the publication of Invisible Man, until his death