Walter Mosley's A Red Death

"One day they gonna th'ow that list out, man. They gonna need some movie star or some new bomb an' they gonna th'ow that list away. Mosta these guys gonna have work again," he said, then he winked at me. "But you still gonna be a black niggah, Easy. An' niggah ain't got no union he could count on, an' niggah ain't got no politician gonna work fo' him. All he got is a do'step t'shit in and a black hand t'wipe his black ass."


Walter Mosley's Red Death, the second installment in the Easy Rawlins mystery series, is a fun read. Unlike Devil in a Blue Dress, which was a tragic mulatto story written in the frame of a detective novel, Red Death is about the McCarthy era's Red Scare. The "sly Jew" communist, Chaim Wenzler, is suspected by the FBI to possess important documents that he may share with the Russians, and agent Craxton needs a Negro to infiltrate Wenzler's charities with First African Baptist Church in Watts. Throughout the novel, the reader is taken on a journey around 1950s Los Angeles, with an emphasis on the black community of which Ezekiel Rawlins was always part of for his detective work. Interestingly, in the context of anti-communist hysteria sweeping the nation, and the blacklisting of suspected communists and left-wing sympathizers, Mosley leaves out the story of blacklisted black actors and celebrities such as Harry Belafonte, Hazel Scott (Trinidadian sista who married Adam Clayton Powell!), or Ossie Davis. 


Nevertheless, the novel is interesting for reflecting Mosley's own life. Easy Rawlins, the black, self-raised Texas Negro, is set up to get a steady job working for the Los Angeles public school system, which both of Mosley's parents did. Moreover, the Jewish communist, Wenzler, and him and his daughter's close relationship with Rawlins was likely inspired by Mosley's mother, a New York Jew with leftist affiliations. Indeed, part of the close friendship that develops between Chaim Wenzler and Easy Rawlins lies in their solidarity against racism, and their experiences in World War II Europe liberating death camps and all that good stuff. At the end of the day, Rawlins, out of a fear of the IRS imprisoning him for tax evasion, essentially sells himself as a spy for the FBI, losing nearly everything he gained at the end.


Ima read the next Easy Rawlins mystery and write a more detailed review that doesn't reveal too much of the plot. I patiently await the next opportunity to avoid doing schoolwork in order to complete another Mosley novel. I also appreciated the Africa Migration group, an obvious reference to Marcus Garvey, Pan-Africanism, and black nationalism.