Preview
  • Invisible Man

  • A Novel
  • By: Ralph Ellison
  • Narrated by: Joe Morton
  • Length: 18 hrs and 36 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (8,943 ratings)

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Invisible Man

By: Ralph Ellison
Narrated by: Joe Morton
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Publisher's summary

Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time

Ralph Elllison's Invisible Man is a monumental novel, one that can well be called an epic of modern American Negro life. It is a strange story, in which many extraordinary things happen, some of them shocking and brutal, some of them pitiful and touching—yet always with elements of comedy and irony and burlesque that appear in unexpected places. It is a book that has a great deal to say and which is destined to have a great deal said about it.

After a brief prologue, the story begins with a terrifying experience of the hero's high school days, moves quickly to the campus of a Southern Negro college and then to New York's Harlem, where most of the action takes place. The many people that the hero meets in the course of his wanderings are remarkably various, complex and significant. With them he becomes involved in an amazing series of adventures, in which he is sometimes befriended but more often deceived and betrayed—as much by himself and his own illusions as by the duplicity of the blindness of others.

Invisible Man is not only a great triumph of storytelling and characterization; it is a profound and uncompromising interpretation of the Negro's anomalous position in American society.

©1952 Ralph Ellison (P)2010 Random House
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Editorial reviews

An idealistic young man strives to make his way among the like-minded of his own Black community and the larger white world beyond only to experience cascading disillusionment in both. He is The Invisible Man, the protagonist of Ralph Ellison’s masterpiece, electrifying today, and devastatingly so when published in 1953. A richly poetic and cinematic work carrying a searing social critique, the novel features a first-person narrative that seems written to be heard as much as read. And the actor reading to us here seems to have been born for the role; as the movie trailers say, Joe Morton is The Invisible Man.

From his nameless and hidden existence in a Manhattan basement, our narrator leads us through the events leading to his identity or lack of one. A high school valedictorian down South, he receives a scholarship from a white group after being brought onstage for a humiliating, bigoted burlesque. Honored at his Black college to chauffeur a visiting white benefactor, he accedes to the request to take a fateful detour through the town’s Black slums. As a result, the college’s president, a venerated yet utterly Machiavellian figure, scapegoats him. Expelled and directed north for redemption and employment, he again becomes the fall guy, literally and figuratively, when he is injured and laid off from his job in a union-embattled New York City factory.

Nursed back to health by the kind, maternal Mary up in Harlem, he seems to find his calling at the unlikely event of an elderly couple’s eviction. Spontaneously addressing the roiling crowd to temper their rage lest it incite the armed white evictors, the injustices he shares with them by race, as well as those befalling him for less obvious reasons, impassion him to eloquently encourage their defiance. His oratory draws him to the attention of Jack, head of ‘the brotherhood’ (Ellison’s stand-in for the Communist movement), who offers him work and successfully indoctrinates him with utopian propaganda and sets him up to lead the party’s Harlem chapter. Seduced by his prestige among the party’s white sophisticates and a long-craved sense of purposefulness he embraces his work, even standing down Ras, an afro-centric nihilist violently competing for followers. Intrigue upon intrigue later, a more sinister threat reveals itself in his dogmatically ruthless brother-mentor plotting to further his cause even at the expense of others’ lives. Racism, our narrator shatteringly learns, is but one form of man’s inhumanity to man. And so, he has hibernated, invisibly, until now, until a stirring in his soul and imagination suggests the possibilities of his own spring.

Propelled largely through its characters’ richly defined verbal personae, the novel is perfectly realized by Joe Morton’s masterful, dramatically distinct vocal embodiments; the protagonist himself is, not surprising, his tour de force. In the end, we experience the sensibility of actor and author as one and the same: a perfect match-up indeed. Elly Schull Meeks

Featured Article: The 20 Best Classic Audiobooks to Listen to Again and Again


Classics are known for their timeless quality, their ability to endure through generations and still hold something significant for the modern listener—whether it’s commentary on a long-gone era or an ageless tale of adventure. In this roundup, each story is paired with an exceptional, show-stopping narrator who takes the tale to new heights. While you may have read some of these stories, you’ve certainly never heard them quite like this.

What listeners say about Invisible Man

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This Great American Novel

Joe Morton lives and breathes this wonderful look into the life of an exceptional American who tells a story of life in this country. We couldn't have had a better, more passionate narrator.

Ellison delivers to us a rare glimpse into the lives of those who truly depict the soul of America and the state of the country in all its savage complexity and psychopathic depravity. The man with no name is all of us. Ellison says, in one book, what many great novelists take their entire careers to say. This is America at the crossroads and at the beginning of modern American civil rights.

It's a great book and a superb production.

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Timely and timeless tale

I initially thought this was a book from the 60s and the civil rights movement. Then I learned it was from the 50s during the time of Marxist sympathies. However most of the stories read like they’ve come off today’s headlines. This is an amazing narration of an incredible book.

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Incredible Narration

Hands down the best narrator on audible and a phenomenal book. Can't recommend highly enough.

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What a Joy.

For some reason I was suppose to have read this book in High School but I don't remember anything about it. But listing to the great read by Joe Morton was like having the best seats while watching a memorable play.

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Absolutely loved it.

So thought provoking! His 'rambling on' Really got me thinking. It took me a good two weeks after numerous breaks, but I could listen hours at a time.

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Riveting Story

I've never read anything by Ralph Ellison before, and this was so good that I'm eager to read or listen to more. There was a frankness of the African American plight that we must never forget - this invisibility that he talks of, prejudice, and racism. And as we start 2017 we as a society have not fixed these problems even if they're a little lessened. This seems an important work of fiction and I'm glad to have listened to such a well narrated version.

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The best of Audible to Date

Everyone born in the USA should read this book. Its a superb description of the state and condition of blacks in the USA. Although it's more than 60 years old this book is just as relevant now as when it was written. Joe Morton's performance was superb. He masterfully breathed life into each of the characters and narrated the book as if he were the author. I will listen again and look for other books that utilize his talent.

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Walking a Pastry

A poignant story of summer romance on Nantucket Island in 1943. While the war grinds on Millie and Mark are drawn together by a passion they cannot control or extinguish. Roger returns, wounded and adrift (the 'invisible man' in the tale) who is brought back to life by Betty (a low-born but lovely and caring local townie).

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Fantastic, Great Narration

Fantastic Book, Great Story That Should be Shared by people of all ages. A good history of what life was like.

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Narration was amazing

If it weren't for the narrator I probably wouldn't have finished this book. The story was OK

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