I went to see Walter Mosley last night at Borders - what a
cool guy. He is a very entertaining reader - read from his
new book "Bad Boy Brawly Brown" - and an interesting speaker.
He had a great rapport with the audience and although it was
quite a large crowd he made the event feel intimate. I have
been reading several of his books in the past week and I
enjoyed them although I don't think that he'll ever be one of
my favorites. Still, I'd encourage anybody who has a chance
to hear him read to go for it (although I think he said that
this was the last stop of his tour).
Questions he addressed - he's from LA originally, although he
hasn't lived there since the 1970s! I found that interesting,
I don't know where he lives now. I assume somewhere on the
east coast since he was ending his tour in Virginia but he
didn't volunteer the information and it seemed rude to ask.
He enjoyed the movie of "Devil in a Blue Dress," and there
are various film and TV projects he may be involved with in
the future, but it's hard to tell how those things go and
it's not a priority for him. If Mosley had been in charge of
the film, he would have made it differently but, he added,
that's not to say his version would be better. He likes
Denzel Washington but thinks he is "too expensive" and in any
case he thinks that Don Cheadle's Mouse was the "great
performance" in the movie (much applause on this
point).
Mosley has written mysteries, sci-fi, and literary fiction,
but he doesn't really think about genre when he writes. He
just writes the stories that he wants to tell. He considers
his "genre" to be writing about black male heroes. He was a
computer programmer before he was a writer, and he used to
get up at 5 in the morning and write for 3 hours before going
to work. Now he still writes for 3 hours every day, and he
finds he can't be productive if he tries to write more than
that (one awed audience member kept asking what he does for
the rest of the day, but most of us thought that was funny,
esp. those who have tried their hand at writing). His first
book was "Gone Fishing" but he couldn't sell it because of
the stereotype that "white people don't read about black
people, black women don't read about black men, and black men
don't read." He hopes that his success has helped to dispel
these stereotypes.
Someone asked about other writers he liked, I'm afraid I
didn't hear most of his responses, though I did catch Gary
Phillips' name. He didn't mention any "classic" mystery
writers that I recognized and in fact he said that when he
started writing the "color" themed titles he wasn't aware
that John D. MacDonald had already done this. In fact, Mosley
didn't intend to start this theme with his own books. His
first published book was "Devil in a Blue Dress" then he
wrote "A Red Death", which was a reference to Edgar Allan
Poe. It was only with the next book that his editor asked him
what the "color" would be in the title and Mosley realized
that the editor was expecting another color, so he has
continued with that theme.
Addressing the relationship between Easy and Mouse, Mosley
said that HE would not be friends with Mouse, and if Mouse
lived next door, he (Mosley) would move out and not leave a
forwarding address. However, Easy uses Mouse to "back him up"
the same way that the powerful men Easy confronts have the
police and other institutions. Easy doesn't think that Mouse
is the most amoral or evil person in the books, Mouse is just
more honest and accepting about the code that he lives
by.
I got my copy of "Brawly Brown" signed and in the great
tradition of having something intelligent to say to an
author, I blurted out "I like your glasses." He was wearing
these very vivid multicolored glasses with sparkles in the
frames. He said, "Thanks" (sincerely, I think) then
added
"they are cheap and they break easily, you can buy them in
any bookstore."
carrie
- Pictures of perfection, as you know, make me sick and
wicked - Jane Austen
_________________________________________________________________
Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com
-- # To unsubscribe from the regular list, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to # majordomo@icomm.ca. This will not work for the digest version. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 31 Jul 2002 EDT