I recently started reading From Superman to Man by Joel Augustus Roger’s (130 pages, 1968),but decided not to finish it. The book is structured around a conversation between a highly educated, well-traveled African American Pullman porter and a racist Southern senator.

The porter is incredibly patient and polite, using his extensive notes and literary knowledge to debunk the senator’s prejudices. While the discourse on race is historically fascinating, informative, and necessary, it lacks a strong narrative drive. As an African American woman, I found the senator’s ignorance and the porter’s endless patience with him exhausting to read.

I have a 50-page cutoff for books, and I reached that point and decided to put it down. While it is a powerful and educational read that effectively dismantles various stereotypes, the content made it difficult to get through as a story. I would still recommend it to anyone looking to become more racially informed, but it functions more as a rhetorical debate than a novel.