The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man

In the middle of a preposterously accomplished career that included writing hit pop songs with his brother and leading the NAACP during perhaps its most influential decade, James Weldon Johnson also wrote a single, slim novel that is as great as any of its time. Full of echoes of everyone from Frederick Douglass to David Copperfield, it's a savvy and slippery tale that passes itself off as a joke until you realize it's a tragedy, and promising a factual "glimpse" into African American life when what you're really getting is something more subtle and challenging: art.