What even is Hell of a Book besides a 2021 National Book Award finalist? It’s singular. “Singular” meaning both “exceptionally good or great, remarkable”; and “strange or eccentric in some respect.”

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, one of the greatest novels ever written, the protagonist, who is black, and never named, tells us that “I was never more hated than when I tried to be honest. Or when, even as just now I've tried to articulate exactly what I felt to be the truth. No one was satisfied.”

What is that truth for him? That he is “invisible...simply because people refuse to see me.” They “see only my surroundings, themselves or figments of their imagination, indeed, everything and anything except me.” This is Hell of a Book’s problem too. His black protagonist isn’t named either. It’s unclear, in fact, whether he’s even one person.

Yet, unlike Invisible Man, Hell of a Book is about authorship. (The protagonist is writing a book called Hell of a Book. It may or may not be the one you’re holding in your hands). And it’s about identity, and whether the particularity of someone’s personality even matters when they exist as a body that can be indiscriminately killed with no consequences. How to be honest about that fact?

Black Lives Matter. Here’s your Hell of a Book guiding question:

If art is supposed to be about self-expression, how can an artist’s “self” take form when others don’t respect its individuality? This is not to call anyone a “victim.” What kind of art does that artist end up creating?

Hell of a Book

Hell of a Book Book Club Questions PDF