In 2004 Walter Mosley changed my life for the second time. My Missus introduced me to his work in 2001. I had heard of the movie, Devil in a Blue Dress. But I neither saw it nor knew that it was based on a book.
And what a book...
Published in 1990, Devil in a Blue Dress is the story of Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a transplant from Houston’s Fifth Ward, living in 1947 Los Angeles. Easy is a black man making a place for himself in a white world that certainly doesn’t want him, has no idea what to do with him, but needs him all the same. A veteran of the vicious fight to break Nazi forces after the shock of D-Day, Easy doesn’t bow or scrape, step or fetch.
When we meet him, Easy has just been fired from his assembly-line job at an aircraft manufacturer. Unable to bend himself to apologize to a foreman who wouldn’t hear anything approaching dissension from a black man, Easy is looking for a way to make his $47 mortgage payment without compromising his hard-won principles. That’s when Joppy, Easy's bartender-friend, introduces him to Dewitt Albright. A white private investigator who needs a leg man to run down leads in the black community, Albright sets Easy’s teeth on edge.
But the only thing that truly frightens Easy is the specter of poverty that haunts him more than the ghost of his long-missing father’s memory. Easy takes Albright’s upfront-money and his under-handed job.
If you’ve read any P.I. stories written in the last hundred-or-so years, you know what to expect—deadly secrets, people who aren’t what they seem, and a good-as-gold man in the churn, trying to navigate it all. What is completely different about Devil in a Blue Dress, is Easy Rawlins. Neither Philip Marlowe nor Sam Spade, Easy is chasing the American dream rather than suffering from it. He is house-proud, community proud and motivated to maintain his place in both as an upright man.
As a black man, anywhere but especially Los Angeles—where the boundaries are unmarked but always arbitrary—makes his determination to live free and right up to the limits of his rights potentially deadly.
“A man once told me that you step out of your door in the morning, and you are already in trouble. The only question is, are you on top of that trouble or not?” Easy Rawlins, Devil in a Blue Dress
Easy’s perspective is what sets Devil in a Blue Dress apart as perhaps the greatest noir novel ever written.
Looking for Daphne Monet, a rich man’s fiance, (who purportedly has an affinity for black people) Albright wants to use Easy against those same black people, specifically a deadly man named Frank Green. Todd Carter, Daphne's fiancé, offers even more money to use Easy against white men angling to hurt her. Daphne has plans of her own against her enemies, white and black.
And, wherever Easy goes, death follows. First it’s his friend-in-common with Daphen, Coretta. Then a white private investigator is found beaten to death. Each new body points to Easy. The violence, like the LAPD dogging his steps, is always right there on Easy’s shoulder.
Convinced everyone is using someone, Easy decides to not be used by anyone.
Smarter people than me have written about the power of Mosley’s commentary on what it means to be a black man in America. His fiction contains the real history of black men and women in communities under constant siege—but going about their lives because what else can they do? But as important as perspective is, the power is in the prose and the story. Mosley’s books punches with one line and delights with the next.
Raymond “Mouse” Alexander is Mosley’s gift to the hardboiled tradition and is a JOY to read.
Mosley’s understanding of L.A. in the 40s and 50s is not academic. His knowledge of Fifth Ward, Galveston, and Port Arthur is pitch-perfect—as befitting the son of a Texas transplant. Mosley himself grew up in the L.A. neighborhoods and on the L.A. streets he writes about. When he cites people, places, and prices, (like that $47 mortgage payment) it’s not nostalgia. It’s living, breathing fact.
At my wife’s urging, I read Devil in a Blue Dress in 2001. Mosley’s book completely rearranged my ideas about what a mystery novel could be and what genre can do. As my dear-departed writing buddy Derrick Ferguson said, “Mosley makes hard writing read so fun.”
Meanwhile, in 2004, I did little more than piddle around with my attempts at fiction. With WAY more stops than starts I never really found my stride. Mostly because I imitated others. Then my Missus took me to a reading by Walter Mosley at Murder By the Book, in Houston.
There were probably 75 of us shoehorned into a room intended for ten people and two brooms. I don’t know who asked the question—or, for that matter, even what the question was—but Walter Mosley looked right at me and said, “Whatever you read, whatever you write, it’s supposed to be fun.”
That “simple” statement changed my outlook on writing just as his first book changed my outlook on genre.
Mr. Mosley’s generosity to other writers, (especially writers of color) is legendary. His collection of short stories, Five Easy Pieces, is published through a black-owned press. He teaches workshops on writing.
The previously mentioned pulp-writer, Derrick Ferguson met Walter Mosley and was surprised that the great man knew of Ferguson’s adventurer, Dillon. Mosley’s words of encouragement and support kept him going when he felt like his writing had gone stagnant.
For Black History Month I highly recommend Imani Perry’s South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. I also recommend read Jelani Cobb’s The Matter of Black Lives. Both are on my to-be-read stack. Both will give you tremendous insight into race and politics in this country.
But please, also read Devil in a Blue Dress and revel in a master at the work of truth-in-fiction. There is a reason why Mr. Mosley’s book is in my top-five crime fiction books. Mostly, it’s there because it is simply one of the best written stories you will ever find.
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