Author Walter Mosley on Writing Mystery Novels, Political Revelation, Racism and Pushing Obama

Author Walter Mosley on Writing Mystery Novels, Political Revelation, Racism and Pushing Obama

Walter Mosley discusses race, society, literature, and politics. He also reveals some obvious truths I should have ascertained already about his life. For example, Easy Rawlins, Mosley's first detective character, represents his father's generation as a black man from the Deep South moving to the North or West (in this case, Los Angeles). Moreover, Mosley is biracial, half white (Jewish mother) and half black! I had never picked up on that in his novels that I have read (Devil in a Blue Dress, A Long Fall, Known to Evil). His detective fiction is some of the best with black protagonists that I have read, surpassing Chester Himes and Rudolph Fisher, author of the A Conjure Man Dies, the first black detective story.

In this interview, Mosley discusses how everyone is mixed-race in America, but nobody talks about it since people continue to define race based on external physical features rather than the long history of racial miscegenation that reveals how more people than one is willing to admit have mixed heritage. Mosley also discusses his own problems with capitalism, alcoholism in his past (that theme does appear in his mystery novels), dishonesty in politics and the War on Terror and his own father's background. His father, from southern Louisiana, essentially raised himself from an early age and served in World War II. His father did not want to go to war, because his father never thought of himself as American in this conflict between Germans and the United States. The very idea of seeing himself as "American" only came from being shot at by Germans while fighting in a segregated unit. In addition, Easy Rawlins, working as a janitor at a school in Los Angeles, was inspired by his own father's experiences as a janitor in LA.

1950s Los Angeles, from a racial point of view, was only colored (black and Latino) and whites. Interracial solidarity among non-whites seemed to have been stronger, according to Mosley from his own experiences. Working-class people of color were thrown together due to the jobs available then. Moreover, Mosley's experiences during the Watts Riots in 1965 are also interesting, since his own father wanted to join in the destruction, but couldn't because he knew it was morally wrong. Mosley also discusses how the urban riots that exploded across black communities in the 1960s represented a shift in the mainstream civil rights movement due to black anger.

The origins of Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, featuring Socrates, a natural black philosopher lacking formal education, began with assertions Mosley faced from whites about blacks not being intelligent. I read portions of Always Outnumbered for an American literature course sophomore year in high school, but foolishly did not complete the novel.


His reasoning for choosing mystery novels as his vehicle for self-expression also reveals how insane capitalist distribution of literature is. His first novel, featuring Mouse and Easy Rawlins, was not published because the companies said white folks don't read about blacks, black women don't like black men, and black men don't read! Then Mosley wrote another story with Easy and Mouse, Devil in a Blue Dress, which became a huge success after publication. So Mosley decided to keep writing mystery novels because of their universality, which means that the publishing companies will support him. As Mosley concludes, we live in an oligarchy ruled by corporations because folks aren't pushing. Y'all gotta keep on pushing to get what you want out of this country.

It also becomes obvious why Mosley's newest sleuth, Leonid McGill, had a Communist father. His mother was a communist from New York, which definitely influenced Mosley's own feelings about capitalism and politics.

Great quote from Devil in a Blue Dress:  "Nigger can't pull his way out of the swamp wit'out no help, Easy. You wanna hold on to his house and get some money and have some white girls callin' on the phone? Alright. That's alright. But Easy, you gotta have somebody at yo' back, man. That's just a lie them white men give 'bout makin' it they own. They always got they backs covered."