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of unedited, incomplete manuscńpt. In heavily abridged and edited form, tliis manuscnpt was published five years after his death under the title Junekentb, to generally nnfavorable reviews.

Plot Overview

T he narrator begins telling his story witli the claim tliat he is an “invisible mail.” His invisibility, he says, is not a physical condition—he is not literally invisible—but is rather die result of the refusal of otliers to see him. He says tliat because of his invisibility, he has been lnding from die world, living imdergroimd and stealing electricity from the Monopolated Liglit & Power Company. He burns 1,369 liglit bulbs simultaneously and listens to Louis Armstrong^ “(Wliat Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue” on a phonograph. He says diat he has gone underground in order to write die story of his life and invisibility.

As a yoiuig mail, in the late 1920s or early 1930s, the narrator lived in the South. Because he is a gifted public speaker, he is invited to give a speech to a group of lmportant wliite men in liis town. Tlie men reward him widi a briefcase containing a scholarship to a prestigious black college, but only after humiliating him by forcing him to fight in a “battle royal” in wliicli he is pitted against odier yoiuig black men, all blindfolded, in a boxing ring. After die battle royal, the wliite men force the youdis to scramble over an electnfied rug in order to snatch at fake gold coins. Tlie narrator has a dream tliat night in wliicli he imagines tliat his scholarship is actually a piece of paper reading ‘To Whom It May Concem . . . Keep Tliis Nigger-Boy Running.”

Tliree years later, the narrator is a student at die college. He is asked to drive a wealthy wliite tmstee of the college, Mr. Norton, aroiuid the campus. Norton talks incessandy about his daugliter, tlien shows an imdue interest in die narrative of Jim Taieblood, a poor, uneducated black mail who impregnated his own daugliter. After heanng diis story, Norton needs a dnnk, and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day, a saloon and brodiel tliat normally serves black men. A fight breaks out among a group of mentally imbalanced black veterans at die bar, and Norton passes out during die chaos. He is tended by one of die veterans, who claims to be a doctor and who taunts botli Norton and the narrator for dieir blindness regarding race relations.

Back at the college, the narrator listens to a long, impassioned sennon by the Reverend Homer A. Barbee on the subject of die college’s Foiuider, wliom die blind Barbee glorifies witli poetic language. After die sennon, die narrator is chastised by the college president, Dr. Bledsoe, who has leamed of die narratofs misadventures witli Norton at die old slave quarters and the Golden Day. Bledsoe rebukes die narrator, saying tliat he sliould have sliown the wliite mail an idealized version of black life. He expels the narrator, giving him seven letters of recommendation addressed to die college’s wliite tmstees in New York City, and sends him there in searcli of a job.

Tlie narrator travels to the briglit liglits and busde of 1930s Harlem, wliere he looks unsuccessfully for work. Tlie letters of recommendation are of no help. At last, die narrator goes to die office of one of his letters’ addressees, a tmstee named Mr. Emerson. There he meets Emerson^ son, who opens die letter and tells the narrator tliat he has been betrayed: the letters from Bledsoe actually portray the narrator as dishonorable and unreliable. Tlie young Emerson lielps the narrator to get a low-paying job at the Liberty Paints plant, wliose trademark color is “Optic Wliite.” Tlie narrator briefly serves as an assistant to Lucius Brockway, the black man who makes tliis wliite paint, but Brockway suspects him of joining in imion activities and tums on him. Tlie two men fight, neglecting die paint-making; consequently, one of die imattended tanks explodes, and the narrator is knocked imconscious.

Tlie narrator wakes in the paint factor/s hospital, having temporańly lost his memory and ability to speak. Tlie wliite doctors seize the arnval of their imidentified black patient as an opportunity to conduct electric sliock experiments. After die narrator recovers liis memory and leaves the

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