Walter Mosley is one of the world’s most admired writers, and certainly one of the most respected African American scribes. Of mixed race heritage – a Jewish mother and African American father – this only child was surrounded by storytelling while growing up (from his Russian relatives on his mother’s side to tales of the Deep South on his father’s).
Despite only starting writing professionally at 34 years old, he has won numerous awards, including the PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award, has over 43 critically acclaimed books under his belt, chiefly crime fiction, and is best known for his celebrated black hero, private eye Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins. Mosley’s books have been translated into 23 languages with some being made into films, the most famous being Devil in a Blue Dress with Denzel Washington as Easy Rawlins.
His latest book Rose Gold revives the much loved Easy Rawlins to unravel yet another mystery, this time the kidnapping of a millionaire weapons manufacturer’s daughter Rosemary Goldsmith. Set in the Patty Hearst era of black nationalism, police racism and corruption and political abductions, he gives the narrative a contemporary edge and relevance. Mosley speaks to Joy Francis about the enduring appeal of Easy Rawlins, why he writes for black audiences, his appreciation of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poetry and the importance of creating black heroes in literature.
What inspired you to bring Ezekiel ‘Easy’ Rawlins back into our collective consciousness?
I had been writing Easy for a long time. The books weren’t getting worse or anything, actually the writing was getting better, but I didn’t think there was anything new happening. So his suspected death came to me a few years ago. I didn’t think I would write any more Easy [stories], but a few years later I felt differently. Easy was based a lot on my father and his generation, and I realised I had got to a place where I could talk about my own experience of LA and black politics. Once I realised that was true, I could start writing him again as I could see the new possibilities for Easy.
The general feedback to your latest book Rose Gold is that it is influenced by the infamous kidnapping of heiress Patty Hearst in 1974. How would you describe the book?
I consider it a very modern novel as far as the content is concerned. The story I’m telling is a story that could happen today. I was interested in the Patty Hearst story. Here we have someone who is white, liberal and represents great wealth and is revolutionary and wanted to change the world. I wasn’t trying to retell the Patty Hearst story. It was easy for me to say that Rose is a victim of her father and politics, but there are other people who have just as many problems who aren’t famous and who are ignored.
Who do you write for?
When I’m writing the Easy books, I’m thinking of a black audience and about that black audience identifying with the characters, not as victims but individuals who find themselves in a world they just can’t quite control. I want to corroborate that experience of you being in this world you can’t quite control, but that it’s okay. Easy is free because he knows who he is and where he is, whether it is in relation to the police or anybody else. And that knowledge is the moment of liberation. I’m very political. What is going on in New York and LA with the police [and racism] is bad, but the answer to that is not saying this is bad, that is obvious. The answer is who are you in relation to it. That is what Easy represents. He is man who understands himself and his liberation.
You have said it is important to write black male heroes. Why?
In America, and the rest of the world in different ways, there are large groups of people who have had their hopes and dreams taken away from them by groups of people who say, we didn’t really do it to you, or that you really deserved it. A common question asked by white people was: Don’t we live in a post racial nation now we have a black president? People want to, in the worse way, believe that and not deal with the oppression that exists in America. When you are able to talk about that history and say no, wait a second, there are more black men in prison today than there were black men as slaves. That is a problem. Having a black president has changed the context, but the issues are still there so it is important to talk to that [black] audience. I recently heard Linton Kwesi Johnson perform his reggae poetry to an audience full of black Jamaicans who felt, yes this corroborates who I am and my experience and it is also on the level of art.
Your work has been translated for the small and big screen, including Devil in a Blue Dress and the Socrates Fortlow inspired Always Outnumbered movie on HBO. What it is like handing over your work to someone else to interpret?
That’s a complex question. For instance, with Always Outnumbered I wrote the script and I handed it over to me, but I was happy with the changes I made. With Devil in a Blue Dress, Carl Franklin is a master and did a beautiful job. Recently, I was doing a project and it had a black male protagonist. I was told to do an open casting for the role which meant they wanted a white character. I said no. They said, he could be anybody and represent anything so we shouldn’t just look for a black actor. They didn’t understand why I said no – because I wrote it. This is common, but as long as I’m not in it for the money, or the appearance of success or fame, but am in it for the content and the stories, I’m able to tell them no, I’m okay and will move ahead. Most of the films I make will be good films as they are things I feel committed to. The other unspoken part of this is that books are more important than movies. Books make you think, movies entertain. Books are something you do alone; movies are what you do on a date. One reaches more deeply than the other. If people see my movies they will read my book. I’m not worried about the film world. Film is an image. An intangible image you sit and watch and a book burrows deep into your mind.
Do you still write daily and what is your routine?
It’s very simple. When I wake up I write for no more than three hours every day. The rest of the day is up for grabs: doing an interview or having dinner with a friend or attending a reading with a writer from England. The only thing is that I have to write every morning. I did this when I still had a job. With most jobs, you don’t work all those seven or eight hours. A solid three hours of writing is a lot of work. The problem with a job is that you have to be there for the full eight hours.
What keeps you writing?
I didn’t start writing until my mid 30s, so there is this great silo for ideas. For 34 to 35 years this silo had been filled with ideas and now, all of a sudden, I’m writing and it is all flooding out – and it could come out forever. I’m grateful I didn’t come to writing until later in life. I love telling stories and love coming up with a character, idea, notion and situation, and following them through. Each year there may be five days I don’t write. If I got up one morning and the writing was over then the writing would be over, and that would be okay. I can’t imagine that happening though. It is the most important and most personal thing I do.
What advice do you have for writers, particularly of colour?
It would be the same advice if you were a white writer, old writer or Indian writer. Writing itself is the content which is deep in your unconscious and to get it out you have to address it every day. So the most important thing is to write every day and the truth will come out of you. The truth will come out of you whether you a black woman in Kenya or Nigeria, and one needs to have faith in that. The thing I would say to writers of colour is, don’t be fooled by the guy next door who says my writing is real writing and yours isn’t. Don’t let someone from another persuasion ever tell you your work isn’t as good as theirs.
Rose Gold was published in the UK on Tuesday 23 September 2014 by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of Orion Publishing Group, and is available at all major bookstores and on Amazon. A review of the novel will be posted later in October.