A Little Yellow Dog

Walter Mosley came to the bookstore where I worked for a reading and signing in the mid-‘90s. It was an unusual event, beginning with the scheduling: It took place, as best I can remember, at one o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. There’ll be no one here, I remember thinking, but I was wrong.

Mosley is always dressed to the nines in photographs, and, on that Wednesday afternoon, dozens and dozens of fans arrived at the bookstore, every black man and woman and child among them also dressed to the nines. Mosley at the time was the favorite writer of record of our country’s President, and as they waited for his appearance, everyone’s pride in his work and accomplishment was plain.

It was quite an unusual sight and an impressive showing in the middle of a weekday afternoon, on a midwestern college campus, where casual and ironic was the typical style.

Then Mosley took the podium and read the raunchiest pages of his current hardcover with great relish, while the crowd sucked in its breath and giggled and shouted approval.

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I'm not positive now, but I think he may have read the first chapter of A Little Yellow Dog -- the material fits the bill, and the pub date (1996) sounds about right.

I'm embarassed to admit that this is only my second Easy Rawlins novel (after Devil in a Blue Dress)and only my third Walter Mosley (afterFearless Jones)but I plan to make up for lost time.

My two small complaints remain the same. First, there's that Mouse; every series character of the last couple decades has a "Mouse" (or "Hawk" or "Bubba")to handle the real dirty work. These characters feel(to me) more like a work-around for the writer -- so that their protagonist can remain sympathetic to the (apparently) increasingly-genteel readers out there -- than full-fledged characters.

Second, Mosley has a tendency to barnstorm -- once the end of the novel is in sight, his prose can sometimes read more like itinerary, as Easy crisscrosses L.A. wrapping up plot points while the period detail and sociohistorical insight that inform the earlier portion of the tale drops from sight.

These amount to only small complaints, though, because the writing on a whole is rich and textured and extremely enjoyable. I'm eager now to try out his newest, contemporary series as well, but the Easy Rawlins books are a singular take on the private eye genre; after reading one, the next private eye you read, when he complains of being behind the eight ball and unable to trust the police, may just strike you as a crybaby.

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