Annandale Blues: A Journey in Ralph Ellison’s America

Ducornet’s adventures in America offer a unique perspective on American life; his exotic role as Frenchman in the US allowed him to become an ‘invisible man’ of another sort. While he was treated as a special case–aFulbright scholarship student visiting America for the first time–his confrontations with the diverse aspects of American culture were constantly inflamed by his innocent insistence on civil rights and equality for people of all races. Hitchhiking down the East Coast, drudge work at a plush hotel, washing dishes, playing saxophone in his own band, or hiring on at no charge to help an African-American truck driver in the South, Ducornet agitates his own imagination to wring from these occurrences new insights into the alleged ‘good life’ in America. This is one of the most compelling travel accounts I have ever read, and while words like ‘page-turner’ and ‘riveting’ are usually reserved for mysteries and thrillers, that’s exactly the way I felt when I first read this book in one sitting. –Paul Garon