Publisher's Synopsis
The novel opens with a Prologue describing the depressed state of the narrator, who remains nameless throughout the novel. He is an invisible man, he proclaims, and has taken to living unknown underground, sucking electricity from the state of New York into his many light bulbs that he has hung in his lair. The novel is to be the story of how he came to be in this position.As a young boy, the narrator overhears the last words of his dying grandfather, whose message lingers with him through high school. He is struck with this idea when he is asked to give his college oration to the town's most honored white men. At the fancy ballroom where he attends the occasion, he is ushered into the battle royal with the other boys hired for the evening's entertainment. First however the boys are brought into the room where a naked woman dances. The boys are next blindfolded and pitted against each other in a boxing ring. After several fights, only the narrator and the largest boy, Tatlock, remain and they are told they must fight each other for a prize.The next stage requires the boys to grab for gold coins on a rug which turns out to be electrified. The narrator is finally allowed to give his oration and is awarded a scholarship to a renowned black college. At college, he is first faced with the disillusionment which will overcome him by the end. The memory is painful as he relates the day he was given the honor of driving an old white trustee, Mr. Norton, around the campus. The drive goes smoothly for a while although Mr. Norton's questions surprise the narrator. Norton sees every student at the college as part of his fate. He also welcomes a chance to explore parts of the surrounding town . Mistakenly, the narrator drives Norton into a poor district of black sharecroppers and Norton is intrigued by a disgraced member of the community, Jim Trueblood, who is rumored to have impregnated both his wife and daughter. Trueblood gives a long description of the dream which made him commit the act of incest and resulted in his wife trying to kill him. After this episode, Norton feels faint and the narrator takes him to the Golden Day brothel in order to find whisky to revive him. Mental patients visiting the bar unfortunately rise up against their attendant, trapping the narrator and Norton in the middle of the fight.
