The darkness surrounding him is kept at bay by the brightness of exactly 1,369 light bulbs, loosely hung and powered via a stolen electrical feed from Monopolated Light & Power. There is danger here, and pressure, and mystery. The narrator is in hibernation, hiding from an ominous figure named Ras the Destroyer. But how did he get here? What trauma has he endured? Why does he feel disembodied … “simply because others refuse to see” him?

What’s going on?

What’s going on is a trenchant dramatization of race relations in America. Ellison’s chief theme – that racism dehumanizes all involved participants, essentially blinding them to the real world and making them act as puppets in a tragic comedy – is reinforced throughout the story in fascinating scenes of magical realism (some of them horrific). This is an alternate dimension we’ve entered, where the plot devices of science fiction are employed to bring race and power relations to life.

Ellison’s novel begins with mystery … and then a bang: we’re transported back twenty years to the narrator’s graduation from high school. An articulate, intelligent, and handsome negro, our hero wins a speech competition and is invited to a local white social club to recite his winning entry. But before he is allowed to speak, the members of the club order him, shirtless, into a ring full of scared young black men, blindfold each participant, and force them to beat one another unconscious in a dreadful “battle royal”.

After losing this humiliating contest, the narrator and other boxers are lined up and told to collect an assortment of coins scattered across the floor. Each one of them rushes out onto an electrified piece of flooring, forcing agonized yelps and spastic twitches as they claw feverishly for the coins. Finally, his mouth clotted with the metallic taste of his own blood, the narrator is allowed to deliver his speech. Heckled by the disapproving assemblage of white men, he manages to stumble through obsequiously. He is given a briefcase containing a scholarship to a Southern negro college.

The plot itself seems relatively straightforward: the hero attends college, where he excels until being expelled for taking a white Founder into an undesirable neighborhood (they meet a negro sharecropper who has somehow “accidentally” impregnated his own daughter). Exiled to New York City, the boy then discovers that he has been blacklisted from all respectable employment. But he meets a sensitive white man who offers him a job at a local paint factory, where he is responsible for adding ten drops of black liquid to each can of paint. As he stirs the paint, it turns a brilliant white before his eyes. But our hero eventually uses the wrong mixture, ruins the paint, and is then fired for causing a disastrous explosion. He is given shock treatments in a frightening, sterile hospital until he has recovered, and temporarily loses all sense of himself.

One afternoon he witnesses a sidewalk eviction and, incensed at the treatment of an elderly black couple by the white men evicting them, makes an impromptu speech which triggers a riot against the movers. A member of “The Brotherhood” – a kind of Communist group led by a shadowy cadre of white, privileged men – overhears this speech and enlists the narrator into their ranks. During his first speech, the narrator lights such a fire in the audience’s belly that some members of the Brotherhood want him cast away. He must learn to speak more scientifically, and less emotionally, and is sent to train in the methods of his new brothers.

As his training concludes, the protagonist is given a new name, assigned to Harlem, and begins organizing his fellow brothers and sisters with real skill and enthusiasm. He feels as if he is “making history” – important, successful, alive and highly visible to his fellow men. The media fawn over his speeches. But not everyone is happy: a fellow named Ras the Exhorter (who feels that the Brotherhood is a sham, a proxy for the white power structure already in place) begins to cause trouble for him. The narrator and his friend, brother Tod Clifton, get into a fight with Ras, then flee. Soon the baseless accusations of another brother against the narrator force the Brotherhood to demote him for a time, and he is removed from his post in Harlem and ordered to work in a more remote part of the city until an investigation has been made into his activities.

This begins our narrator’s descent into a disillusioned revolutionary. After strangely voyeuristic affairs with several women, the narrator is returned to Harlem. He finds brother Tod Clifton selling dancing black Sambo dolls on the streets, disgusted with the Brotherhood and its rhetoric. Clifton is shot dead fleeing from the police, and a Harlem race riot erupts in the wake of his funeral. In the days leading up to the riot, the narrator assumes the disguise of a well-heeled character named Rinehart: donning dark sunglasses and a white hat, he is mistaken at times for a pimp, lover, hipster, gambler, crook, and minister.

As the narrator “becomes” Rinehart, people treat him differently depending upon the context in which he appears. He realizes that this man Rinehart has, like a chameleon, managed to adapt to all aspects of “white” society, but at the expense of his own unique identity. The “real” Rinehart, if there is one, remains invisible, unseen. The narrator realizes that he, too, is like Rinehart – the Brotherhood, the school, his employers – they all see him only as a black man, not as an individual. Dressed as himself again, he begins to undermine the Brotherhood’s mission, succinctly phrased in one scene:

The novel ends with a fiery street battle between Ras (now dubbed “the Destroyer”), our hero, the denizens of Harlem, and the mounted police. A fierce Ras, mounted on his own horse and dressed in outrageous tribal battle gear – spear, shield, head-dress and all – is eventually pierced through the cheeks by a spear thrown back at him by the narrator. Our protagonist flees underground to hide from the chaos of the riots, and from Ras, and to think … eventually deciding to end his hibernation and shed his invisible skin: he will emerge a unique individual, in order to speak for all men, no matter the color.

Ellison details this nameless narrator’s path from humiliated youth, to eager student, to disappointed exile, to disillusioned wanderer, to hopeless worker, to hopeful activist, to talented community organizer, to jaded revolutionary, to paranoid lover, to enlightened anarchist with language and imagery reminiscent of jazz (apparently Ellison wrote “on the side” and considered music to be his true calling). The writing is wonderful, truly original from beginning to end.

Initially, the narrator seems somewhat passive, drifting naively along from one flawed institution to another. But this is the novel’s genius: by avoiding a diatribe against these flawed organizations, and instead dramatizing the often comic hypocrisy inherent within them, the actual narrator (Ellison) remains invisible. Working behind the scenes, the author has exposed us to the full range of emotions he has experienced as a black man living in America. By the final lines of the novel, we need no convincing: we believe the protagonist when he says it’s time to rise up out of his basement, and assert his own individuality:

And so Ellison’s hero, now fully aware of the veils that have obscured his vision, emerges from the basement a fully realized human being: colorless, raceless, classless, and empowered to finally use his significant rhetorical skills to awaken others from the nightmare landscape he’s been moving through.

This was an excellent book, containing layer upon layer of symbolism, political metaphor, and mythology. I look forward to reading it again.

This review is one in a series for what I’m calling the The DIY MFA in Creative Writing.

Click here for the comprehensive listing of titles, and check back often for updates on other selections from the list.

James Ellroy’s American Tabloid presents the reader with an alternative history of America … one with personality in spades. This ultra-violent, seedy, hyper-paranoid slice of Americana culminates in the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November of 1963. Covering the five years leading up to the fateful day in Dallas, the novel follows three anti-heroes working sometimes together (but just as often at cross purposes) as they moonlight variously for the Mafia, FBI, CIA, Howard Hughes, Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department, exiled Cuban refugees plotting revenge on Fidel Castro, and themselves.

At first, it’s tough to resist Ellroy’s stylized prose. His sentences are pared down to the bare essentials, with paragraphs so sparse they resemble bone-white skeletons picked clean. Ellroy can go from Miami to Mexico to Guatemala in less than a page, and leave you feeling like he hasn’t rushed the pacing one bit.

As a writer, I found myself looking for tricks in Ellroy’s style which I might be able to emulate. Ellroy’s prose is all about forward motion, the steady layering-on of suspense, the threat of impending violence (imagined or, more often than not, real). He gives us just enough detail to imagine a scene, and not much else. The result is an endless series of deeply memorable visual and stylistic images; memorable because you’ve filled in the details yourself, forced to connect the dots between Ellroy’s scant details and your own imagining of the context surrounding them:

There’s not much there … and yet these brief sentences summon the personality of the place Ellroy is describing with such attitude that I feel like I’m cruising Cuba in a rented Cadillac drop-top.

Ellroy adheres to the “show … don’t tell” school of creative writing. We never get a glimpse into the interior lives of our characters, but have to infer what they’re feeling from their actions. After a particularly brutal set piece where a still relatively uncorrupted FBI agent named Ward Littell witnesses rapes and beatings from afar, then doles out a savage, drunken beating of his own on one of the perpetrators in order to force his cooperation in a shakedown, Ellroy tells us that “Littell walked back to his car. He started sobbing just over the border.”

And that’s about as touchy-feely as Ellroy is going to get. The actions described in the 600 or so pages of this novel would give the even the most hardened of criminals nightmares – the reader is assaulted with murders, chainsaw-assisted beheadings, torture, sodomy, drug addiction, rape and more … all of it unfolding in a cold, clinical style that sounds as if it was spooled off by a sociopath. The detachment here is chilling.

And this is ultimately why I began to pull away from the novel. Don’t get me wrong – Ellroy is a master of style, plot, and suspense. But when every character is, on some level, an emotionless sociopath driven by an insatiable hunger for money, power, or both … it’s hard for me to relate to the reversals of fortune which force the story along. I simply didn’t care whether the characters lived or died, whether they succeeded in their next hit or shakedown, whether they were going to kick the sauce and take down the Mob, or whether they were going to succumb to their baser instincts and become embroiled in a Presidential assassination attempt.

Of course we all know how the novel ends – Kennedy will be killed in Dallas. And Ellroy’s characters – in all of their shallow, filthy, ignorant, emotionally barren glory – will be there to help pull the trigger.

This review is one in a series for what I’m calling the The DIY MFA in Creative Writing.

Click here for the comprehensive listing of titles, and check back often for updates on other selections from the list.

There are a few things that jump out as I begin thinking about what to say.

1. One of them is the concept of Community: the hero leaves home, is engaged in an incredibly exciting adventure, gains magical powers or insight … and is then expected to return to the hum-drum routines of everyday life in order to share his magical powers with the local Community.
   • Joseph Campbell, the author of Hero With A Thousand Faces and the incredibly sharp guy who documented this mythological construct after reading and comparing thousands of texts, believes that a hero who refuses to share his mystical knowledge with the Community (a responsibility which can come at great personal expense to the hero), has failed to complete his heroic journey.
   • After all, what kind of a hero helps … himself? Imagine a Superman who only cared about winning the heart of Lois Lane. Or a Michael Clayton who took the bribe rather than expose the corruption in U-North.
2. The second concept also has to do with refusal: Refusal of the Call. The hero simply says “why bother?” and continues playing Guitar Hero while the world falls apart out his window.
   • Campbell writes: “Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless – even though, like King Minos, he may through titanic effort succeed in building an empire or renown. Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration.”
   • That’s a pretty dire prognosis. Refusal of the call results in the “future” hero never realizing his full potential, doomed to a life of failure and regret.

Campbell’s system tells us that the home is the center of the hero’s world: it’s where he spent his formative years, it’s why he fights and strives against supernatural forces, and it’s the place he desperately needs to return to complete the story. A healthy, fulfilling home life has more power over our hero – whether it be Superman, Michael Clayton, or Bilbo Baggins – than the evil forces against which he strives.

The kids in this 8th grade class attend a well-respected Dallas private school focusing on an international perspective to education. Every one of them can speak three languages or more (French, English and Spanish), and each will have more opportunities than many of their peers in the Dallas public school system. But only if they decide to accept a highly personal and challenging call to adventure, work hard to achieve it, and give something back to their friends, family or local community.

Even the modern day messiah, Barack Obama, has a character flaw – he smokes. So when you’re writing your breakout novel, screenplay or short story, make sure to give your character a few flaws that they can wrestle with and, hopefully, overcome through adversity.

Some of the best examples of this writing tactic tie subtle (or glaringly obvious) plot points to the character’s own psychological and emotional growth.

Here are a few examples:

Fracture:

• Our protagonist begins the film as a rising star in the Los Angeles legal community. He’s about to leave the D.A.’s office for a high-paying job at one of the most prestigious firms in the country, when he’s dragged into a seemingly slam-dunk case. The problem is, he’s cocky, overly focused on making money, and doesn’t seem to have a soul.
• After losing the case and seeing his client die at the hands of a sociopath, our hero eats a big plate full of humble pie, managing to find his soul in the process. He quits the high-powered firm, goes back to work at the D.A.’s office, and finds a way to solve the highly complex case and retry the villain on different charges.
• The movie closes with the protagonist preparing to argue his case alone, a phalanx of high-powered attorneys prepared to argue against him. But we’re sure that this time, he’s going to win … because his heart and head are finally in the right place.

Little Miss Sunshine:

• The motley group of folks in this film each have some major flaw: Grandpa is a heroin addict. Dad is a failed motivational speaker and life coach who is overly concerned with success and appearances. Mom is in a seemingly loveless marriage and is alone. Uncle Frank, the #2 Proust scholar in the country, has just tried to commit suicide. Dwayne has taken a vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force academy, so that he can escape the drudgery of his home life. And then there’s Olive – an unathletic but cheery kid with horrible fashion sense who wants to be a beauty queen.
• When Olive learns that she’s been accepted into the “Little Miss Sunshine” beauty pageant, the whole fam-damily piles into a VW bus and takes a road trip to California. Along the way: Grandpa dies, Mom becomes more frustrated with her family, Dwayne learns that his poor vision will get him rejected from the Air Force Academy, Dad’s mentor turns out to be a con artist, Uncle Frank reveals that his lover left him for the #1 Proust scholar in the country, and Olive begins to doubt whether she has the talent to win the competition.
• The movie ends with Olive’s horrible performance at the competition, a combination burlesque show and pilates act performed to the song “Superfreak“. We learn that Grandpa taught her the dance (humanizing the dead heroin addict) and watch as the whole family comes together to support Olive, who is hands down the most interesting little girl at the competition. Dad is no longer concerned what the audience thinks about him and his family, because finally … after a long road trip in a packed bus … the family is truly together.

So before you send in the manuscript to your agent or editor, ask yourself this … do you like these characters? If the answer is a resounding “YES!” – you might have some more work to do. Make the reader have to work to like the character, and make the character earn that respect.

Here’s a clip of Olive’s dance from the last few moments of “Little Miss Sunshine.” Perfect.