WGBH Radio; The Callie Crossley Show

I'm Calla Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show Walter Mosley has written over 30 books since he picked up the proverbial pin from novels to plays to nonfiction. He's kept his readers on their toes and inspired a generation of new writers. Known for his crime fiction mostly had his fan base in the morning. When he retired the self-educated Private Eye Easy Rawlins on the black hard boiled war veteran who slugged his way through the streets of L.A. but mostly is making it up to readers with his latest protectionists Private Eye Leonid McGill. We'll talk to Mosley about his new book known evil. The second installment of his new detective series. But first we'll honor Women's History Month with a look at Rosie's Place. And we kick off the hour with the daddy of jazz. The legacy of musician Pat Patrick the father of Governor Patrick. Up next American culture jazz fiction and women's history. First the news. From NPR News in Washington on Korver Coleman the Senate is expected to vote on a raft of amendments linked to the new health care overhaul law.

The amendments are part of a sidebar bill that alters part of the new health care law signed yesterday by President Obama. The sidebar includes lowering the tax on expensive insurance plans and closing a gap in prescription drug coverage for people on Medicare. Republican lawmakers say they want to vote on several items in the sidebar that illustrate the health care overhaul law is bad for the country. Two Chinese Muslims have been sent to Switzerland from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. As NPR's Ari Shapiro reports the men are brothers to the United States had a hard time relocating. A judge ordered the U.S. to release these men during the Bush administration but no country was willing to take them. The men are weekers Chinese Muslim separatists. They've been at Guantanamo since 2002. They are not a threat to the United States but the U.S. believes they'll be persecuted in China so they can't be sent home. China has pressured other countries not to take the weekers. Eventually the island nation of Palau offered to resettle the younger brother but the man refused. He said he needs to be with his older brother who suffers from mental health problems. Now that Switzerland has

taken in both men five weeks to remain at the prison in Cuba all of them have been given resettlement offers but not all have accepted Guantanamo now houses one hundred eighty three detainees. Ari Shapiro NPR News. Wash. The nation's largest home lender has announced a new program for people facing foreclosure. NPR's Chris Arnold reports. Bank of America will forgive some of what troubled homeowners. Oh the bank is making this offer to some people who are underwater in their homes meaning they owe more than their house is worth. Those homeowners if they're struggling to pay their mortgage anyway are much more likely to walk away from their house. So a Bank of America will be offering to forgive a chunk of the money that they owe up to 30 percent of the entire loan amount if they stay in their home for five years and keep paying their mortgage. Jack shack it is overseeing the program of Bank of America. We expect to make about forty five thousand offers focused on our most troubled portfolios and we do kind of view it as the first couple steps forward. What we may potentially be a larger step toward the

introductions. Many economists have been pushing for programs like that as they say if it's expanded and picked up by other lenders it could help hundreds of thousands of people to stay in their homes and that in turn it would help the housing market and the economy. Chris Arnold NPR News. The government says sales of new homes dropped last month the Commerce Department says bad winter weather kept perspective homebuyers away. New home sales were down 2.2 percent. This is the fourth month in a row that housing sales have dropped some parts of the country were badly affected. The Midwest saw a drop of 18 percent. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrials are down 33 points at ten thousand eight hundred fifty five. The Nasdaq is down 14 points. It is at twenty four a one. You're listening to NPR. The Federal Aviation Administration is mourning pilots about possible wing problems and certain Cessna planes as Doug Boyle of member station WABE reports it follows a deadly crash in New Jersey earlier this year. The FAA says five people were killed when a six foot

portion of the right wing of the small plane broke off in last month's crash at the Monmouth Executive Airport. Three of the victims were members of a family visiting from Poland. A National Transportation Safety Board preliminary report found that after the section of the outer right wing separated the Cessna rolled and hit the ground just minutes after takeoff. The FAA now recommends that Owners and Pilots inspect any Cessna sky master 336 and 337 series their ground with the wing tip fuel tank modification. Eyewitnesses to the New Jersey crash report of the sky master was flying at a high rate of speed about 50 feet above the runway when it suddenly pitched upward rolled to the right and then veered right before crashing into the ground near the runway taxiway. For NPR News I'm Doug Doyle in Newark. A leading Roman Catholic bishop is quitting his post in Ireland in an action linked to that country's clergy sex abuse scandal. Pope Benedict has accepted the resignation of Bishop John Major head of the county court diocese. He is saying he's fully responsible for how the abuse

cases against children were handled in his bishopric. Irish authorities have documented thousands of cases of abuse against children in Catholic institutions in Ireland and they report that Catholic officials failed to tell authorities about them or act upon them in a legal manner. The bishop says he is sorry he failed abused victims. I'm CORBA Coleman NPR News. Support for NPR comes from the John D and Catherine team across the foundation committed to building a more just verdant and peaceful world. More information at Mac found dot org. Good afternoon I'm Kalak Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. We have a lot going on today. We'll be talking to best selling writer Walter Mosley about his new book known evil will also be honoring Women's History Month with a look at Rosie's Place a sanctuary for poor and homeless women and Boston.

But first we're kicking off the hour with a remembrance of the late jazz musician Pat Patrick. His son Governor Deval Patrick has donated a treasure trove of his father's jazz memorabilia to the Berklee College of Music. Now the collection will officially become part of the college's Africana Studies archive after a private dedication ceremony and a celebration of Patrick's life. And that ceremony is tonight at Berkeley. Joining us to talk about the collection and Pat Patrick's influence on jazz are Bill Banfield and Alan Chase. Bill BANFIELD The director of Africana studies at Berkeley. Alan Chase is the chair of the ear training department at Berkeley. Bill Banfield and Alan Chase Welcome thank you. Bill I want to start with you. Even though the dedication ceremony is tonight you've actually had the memorabilia for year while you've gone through it and catalog it. So help us understand why this is an important addition to your archive of the past the collection of riches in the archives I mean there's that in terms of the education to value it is just so very very risky

because I think it does. There are things to document his life and work and it's wonderful when you find musicians who collect these things but that they have an idea of the value that it can have after and for other people is really important I think that's the kind of educational this mission and message through on it we want to give to students so we've been very excited over the years you say just to go through it and get not only a walk through his life but a walk through culture which is critical. Now as I understand it this came to you in a very unusual well through Governor Patrick but it came to him in an unusual way. Tell us about that. It was found almost put in a dumpster at some point I guess several times. Like it's like the devil was on this stuff and the angels said no no no. Because it is one of the riches. Then and in terms of like I said the dedication and the things in there where what happened was in his death he packed these things away and before his death and that these things were put away in a storage bin he path in 91. This is 2000

and eight or nine that that we received this copy and so as they were trying to clean the bin out they didn't know where these what these materials were they were and cardboard boxes and what have you. But the owner of the storage bin noticed the name and just a wonderful piece of blessing here he made the association to Deval Patrick and Massachusetts and actually gave him a card the governor said you know I think this may be my dad things why don't you send them up here. Wow we got the call we had no idea if we're going to be receiving old books and things. But it wasn't that it was one of these treasures of archives where you find where it was properly prepared 2000 pictures scores correspondences everything you would want in an archive was in this box on a little memory lie back where was the dumpster by the I mean where was the almost stairwell stories you know the I think it was good. It burnt something burnt and that it could be a bunch of you know Mis shot

stories here but I think it's true that the general is trying to clean out the storage bin. Yes. Why is it I mean I remember when I was in the United States I don't know where well it's in Chicago Chicago very good yeah. That's where I made the association OK knew the governor was from Chicago and the five of us so I think that's working. OK I want to get Allan chasten into this conversation Allan you did your dissertation on Sun Ra and you thought he was a very important artist and in a minute I want to allow our listeners to hear a bit of it but tell me first why he was such an important artist. Sun rock and then Pat Patrick playing for Sun Ra sun where I was a jazz composer and bandleader and sort of a spiritual leader to a small group of musician followers in Chicago South Side of Chicago starting in the late 1940s early 50s. And Pat Patrick was one of the integral members of this group for on and off for four decades really the 50s 60s 70s and 80s not continuously but on and off during that time and he Patrick was part of a lot of innovative music not only with Sun

Ra but a lot of it was with him. OK I want to give our listeners just a taste of Sun Ra. OK. OK I have to say that I was never a big Sun Ra fan because I quite frankly he's a little odd to me but I understand he was a major influence in jazz right. Yeah he was. Yeah and there's good news because oil changed over time and he did quite a few different things but that is a that's a pretty telling example right there. OK and the other thing that's very interesting. We're using that tonight in my presentation. We've been talking a lot about that that you know the very seldom do you get to memorize a baritone sax part and there it is right at the beginning that's the piece cost base is the place which actually is one of his. It's

on a rock could have one. That's one of his hits. And notice that it starts off with hat trick on baritone sax. All right I want to give our listeners a little piece of what Deval Patrick thinks about his dad's music. This is the Boston Globe's Sally Jacobs and Scott LaPierre put together a great online mini documentary on Pat Patrick and Arizona Governor Patrick steak on Sunrise music. I never acquired a taste for it so I do respect. I mean I think they are an acquired taste. I did not appreciate until I was in college what a following. Q So he was a huge influence in what way specifically Allan Chase could. I did Sun Ra and there also Pat Patrick's music influenced the rest of jazz. Well there's two ways really in the in the 50s he was writing music when I was an arranger composer and he was writing music that had new sounds in it that ended up anticipating a lot of the new things that happen in jazz in the

60s. What I do is like what just give me one thing dissonant interval being in two keys at the same time I got you know notes that kind of clash with the chord in the mysterious way on purpose. And then in the 60s he got into free improvisation conducting the orchestra with no written music and and setting up improvise group pieces and Patrick was part of both of those innovations and he was a really flexible intelligent musician who could kind of fit into a lot of different situations from bebop to have a guard cat. What did what did the Sun Ra orchestra with Pat Patrick as one of the front men do to really change the taste of jazz enthusiasm because you're talking about the impact of jazz itself so how about jazz enthusiasts. Well you know it's a little hard to say they had a following in Chicago. They were always considered a little bit outside of the main. But they did have they did play dances in a

nightclub the same places that lots of more popular well-known jazz artists played like homage of all big hotel like clubs and things like that. OK when they got to New York they were part of the emerging Free Jazz guard that was I wouldn't say popular but very important. And Patrick was really in the front of that. He anticipated a lot of things. John Coltrane and other people did. And he knew all those people he was part of the screen with all those people. We're talking with Alan Chase's chair of the ear training department at Berkeley and Bill Banfield who's the director of Africana studies at Berkeley and they are celebrating the cataloguing and the ceremony looking at the archive of Pat Patrick who was a front person a baritone sax for four Sun Ra. I want to give people a chance to listen to Pat Patrick kind of separate from sunrise so here's a solo for a sense of his ride ranging talents. And this is from the sun ray Sun Ra track hail is the sound of joy.

God now for me that's really pretty I can go with that that's not so. Sunrise if you will. And I understand he was playing an alto sax and that particular piece. Yes yes he was. And what's interesting is somebody talked about his wide range of town. I think that's one of the things that we're doing and celebrating with as well. With that Patrick is the wide variety that he represents in terms of the musicianship. And you're right he played with a lot of people. Dammy Davis Jr. include Duke Ellington modified to raise with all kinds of folks including in that he had a couple hit later. From a sound check it's not a fact. Good Morning America or Good Morning Vietnam

you know the the the movie I can't remember the name of it but with Robin Williams. Yeah it probably is going you know. Yeah. Thank you. And so he does cut. It. In several places. Step out the Avalon guy but he is a very vocal player but these guys also came up in traditional big bands were things that you see in his photographs that he documented. And his his right as he talked about the time a lot of the traditional big band to be played with and playing in Chicago and playing with these various musicians gave him a much wider palette of things to draw from. And he participated that way. Well BANFIELD I wanted to ask you the part about because one of your quotes is that you know it's important for your students to understand that this is not American Idol but that there is total artistry that needs to happen and that's what he represented. Well I yeah thank you for helping us to talk about that. The meaning of of of his musicianship is much wider as we talked about

that that explains it. It is archived events is this larger idea of musicianship was extraordinary when play as you just pointed out. Great musician but he's a cultural collective conscious about these things he's been a ranger as an employee how to compose it. He's a business minded person he ran the books for the for the record company for a few years. He's a writer teacher technician a bandleader. So Pat Patrick was recognized and the musical circle for these musical accomplished accomplishments as well as his work as a kind of a documentary called Downbeat Magazine Reader poems and I think all of the camaraderie and the kind of correspondence that we have in his archive attest to this and that's the kind of message we really want to send to us today is that in today's culture in that culture as well and this goes across musicians have to be broad and deep in their thinking. Yeah. Thanks to American Idol kind of thing you talked about. Well I think that's great and it's wonderful to have this archive available to jazz historians and others

right here in Boston. We're going out on Mongo Santamaria song yeah yeah this was Pat Patrick Swanny and he wrote the music and I thank Bill BANFIELD And Allan Chase both of you for joining us. The ceremony and dedication of the archive is tonight at the Berklee College of Music. And Bill band director of Africana studies there and Allan Chase is the chair of the department of ear training. Coming up a look at women's history with the women behind Rosie's Place. Back after this break. Stay with us. Ed. The back. Wound through any with.

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to mark the occasion we are joined by two women who are working to improve women's lives. My guests are Kip Tiernan and Sue Marsh. Kip Tiernan is the founder of Rosie's Place but she got off the ground in 1074. Sue Marsh has been the executive director of Rosie's Place For the past 12 years. For decades Rosie's Place has been a sanctuary for poor and homeless women. Kip Tiernan and Sue Marsh welcome. Thank you so much for having us. It's not often you get a chance to talk to people who are one who created just a historic place here in Boston and then another who is carrying on that legacy. That's This is fabulous. Well it's a wonderful honor to be involved with a community like Rosie's Place so we're thrilled to be able to talk to you about it in this month honoring women's history and I think it's wonderful that you founded this in 1074 right around Easter Sunday I'm told and we're coming up on Easter Sunday so it's all perfect so kip. What do you think now you look back on from 1974 today. How do you look at Rosie's Place and and put it in a context.

Well I love to say maybe we've come a long way. We've come a short way but I think places like Rosie's Place have come a much larger way. I mean we do we do things now that people wouldn't have thought of although Rosie's Place was always started as a as a justice kind of thing rather than a support of like a charity. Yeah there is there is a difference and I think that was the difference for you. What does that mean. I think. I think compassion is a discipline. It is finally face and I think that's a big difference and I think that in order to do what we have to do we are very disciplined. It's not just a place that women can come into and get a bail and wave and that's the end of it. Rosie's Place has become family. We literally are their family. And I think we feel wonderful about it.

I think one of the things Kip always has said that's really compelling is Charity is the scraps from the table. But justice is being invited to eat at the table itself. And that's what we do at Rosie's Place we invite the women to be part of a community that's about making change in their lives about seeking justice in the in their own lives but also in the broader world and Kip and I were talking a little earlier today. Yesterday we had 30 of our staff up at the State House talking about preserving the benefits for family preservation in part of the state budget. And that's a unique circumstance to be and to have direct service providers who are able to see the larger world and to be able to try and take action to affect that larger world as well. Kip When you founded Rosie's Place Did you understand that it was going to become a model for the nation. I mean that's essentially what has happened. Well you know but it would I think that when places like roses were founded soup kitchens food shelters I think at the time all of us were very interested in.

Well here's what we did we created and I think that fit those tragic needs rather than create recreated nothink that would. You know rather than rather than made it and do something about it we wanted to change it. And I see I think we should have been where he and I see I think that Rosie's Place works and we have always been involved in the justice. Well that came from you and I think we should we should articulate that I'd let you talk I mean that that's been a whole all of your life you've been working in that arena so this is so that the founding of Rosie's Place really came out of your work with all kinds of other organizations that were devoted to justice. Well I certainly think that charity is not enough. My mother my grandmother thought it wasn't enough. My mother thought it was enough so that I probably have something stamped in my DNA that my grandmother my mother

left there that said it is not enough. Tell me about that piece of called it and embed it in the front door of Rosie's Place. Well actually it's embedded in the front door of the food bank. OK I started four years later and. My grandmother like many grandmothers had everybody during the depression I was a child of the depression I was seven. And she used to feed everybody and they'd come to the door every day. And she always had something on the stove and something to give them when they left. And when they would lay I never knew how they knew our house. So I said how do they how I why I was he said Watch when they would leave. They would take a piece of coal out of the raggedy pocket and put it next in front of our doorstep. And that meant that this was a safe house. You could get a meal there or whatever and I think that was also my first lesson in community organizing because that was happening all

over the country. There were different symbols that they had at that that stuck in my little mind. Yeah social networking of a completely different sort of totally extraordinary. Well the whole concept of having a safe house and that's what Rosie's Place represents that is really important. That's right. A sanctuary where you can. And say what you need and then we'll try to do our best to meet that need. And sometimes it's very complex. You're being evicted you need to get into shelter. You need help getting into detox you need help finding a job. And sometimes it's much more simple. You need a friend you need someone to listen to you. You need someone to say hello to you. We've had guests come to Rosie's Place to say we're the only people who say hello to them all day long. Boston a wonderful city can also be a really tough city to live in especially if you're poor. We're talking to Sue Marsh is executive director of Rosie's Place and Kip Tiernan who's the founder of roses blaze. With the recession impacting as hard as it is I can only imagine that

usage is up at Rosie's Place. Your mission is more important than ever. We have seen in the last year an increase in the number of guests coming to look for services from Rosie's Place although it's leveled off over the last couple of months I have to say. But especially last spring last summer and the early fall we saw more women than ever before coming into our dining room using our advocacy services looking for help with back rent utility bridges. And interestingly a number of these women were the new guests to Rosie's Place women who had never had had to look to us before. Women who own their own homes and had lost them to foreclosure. Women who lived in apartment buildings that were being foreclosed upon. What have you done to adapt to the recession. Well this place we one thing we had to do which was tough words we actually cut our own budget. We kind of budget by 8 percent because we were anticipating a tough year this year. And this is when I really wish that Rosie's Place was like some other

organizations where we had big travel budgets or staff training budgets because it would have been really nice to go right there and cut some money and I did but now you're cutting bone right. So we really cut in sort of on the edges of things things that maybe wouldn't help to keep a woman in her house we kept those services but we cut some of the things that help make a poor woman's life a little better. Like trip to the movies or a gift at the holidays and even though the amount of money we spend on those things is very small. They were things that were important and that we've tried to replace in other kinds of ways but we really looked at what our core services that we worked hard to protect those core services. I can't I don't think a lot of people understand that when women come to Rosie's Place you know so often when they come with kids to so we're talking about the person that's the heart of the family being affected in a most fundamental way. We have a lot of kids coming into Rosie's Place with the moms. In fact we child works that we work with kids. And we read to them and we take them

to circuses and movies and whatnot so that we deal with poverty on many levels. And I think poverty of choice is really important and I do be able to bring them somewhere that they have been before. It is a delight and I had so delighted them and it certainly is to us. But when we started Rosie's You know we said this is going to be unconditional love. This is going to be a. If we can't have what we want at least we'll have what we need. And little by little we grew we brought the things in which it was I think is very important I think that and I want to mention something while you pause so you're just started a new educational program. President I thought that you know I just opened a new women's education center. We have GED ESL literacy classes we were teaching in our dining room and we simply had grown that. And so we were very fortunate in that

we were able to raise the money to build this new four story center with real classrooms real tutoring spaces before the stock market blew up and we would have been a big trouble then but we were fortunate in our timing. It opened about a month ago. We have 150 students many of whom have never been in school before. One of the interesting things I learned as part of this program is that in Haiti you have to pay to go to school with. So Father parts of the world too. So often families would send the boys to school but not the girls. Right. So the women who come to Rosie's Place who take our classes this is often their first school experience they don't have never even been in a setting where somebody says open to page 15. Let's fill in the blanks that's completely new. But it's a wonderful success a wonderful atmosphere of hope and opportunity and just the kind of thing that Rosie's Place likes to do. What does it feel like to understand your legacy while you're here to appreciate it whether or not you think the job is done. I mean you got quite a legacy.

Well I don't think justice will ever be done. Look at the front page you give you a fair example of it about justice in this country. I think that when I say to Rosie's Place thirty six years ago this is just me and four years later I started a food bank and all my big and because they were the the nose it needs they were the obvious ones. And yes. And yeah I mean charity is that once a symptom and because of our society's failure to face up and deal with the quality I think that instead of solving problems when we fall we were finding ways to manage them. And Rosie's Place is solving problems. And I think that that's what makes this so different from you know from other places I think that I want to just get to Personally though I know you don't. The job's not done I know there's a lot to be said by all of that. But personally

this is a this is the legacy this is an achievement. Well how do you feel. Well like. I'm to begin with I'm a nonprofit junkie. I've started help to start there a number of places that are still running and in places like the Boston women fund poor people united fund health care for the homeless community works. And these are all based These are all justice based issue every single one of them. Yes so how do you and I feel about it personally. I keep asking yes I do because I think it's important. You know it's not enough it's not enough maybe it's never going to be enough for our crowd. I mean our guests have suffered so much for so long and the so many of them and they they have yet to I mean yeah we've got two women in school we've got two women in college we've got two women in their own places and they're very happy about

it. But it's not enough I mean the majority of people in this country that are really facing serious hard times i women and children. And I think that's what started me off to begin with when I saw those guys coming to our house when I was a little kid. The women had to be somewhere right. Exactly God knows where they were but I remember Ray goes to Dale was a sociologist and has a sociology college after I'd started Rosies and feeling rather good about it and a votebank. She said it's OK to feed people and to shelter them. But what we really have to do is find out what caused this would cause this problem. That's the difference between charity and justice. I think that but each one of those women who've come through have been better for it I hate to be a little Christmas Carol about it but without my

goodness where would we be so you know I think it's true. I think that's what you have to be about is providing assistance right to someone who needs. And then keeping your eyes on that long term vision of justice and that's the balance. And it's easy to forget one for the other. But they really go hand in hand and they're strengthened by one another. I mean what KIPP says she serves on are She's a permanent member of our board of directors the only permanent member of our board of directors and she says when we have new members on you know Rosie's Place has my heart. And even though she's not admitting it to us here right at this table right now I think the organizations and the community she's created. Half her heart because she's able to have a place where she connects with women who would often be dismissed or forgotten. And you find out how tremendous they are. And that is a gift and it's a gift to be at Rosie's Place to be able to have those connections. What's the difference between those of us who are having this conversation at this table and some of those women who are in coming through Rosie's Place and needing your help.

I find so little I mean in my 12 years it was misplaced that the distance between the guests and me is no distance at all. I mean I have two kids. Talking about kids is the fastest way I find to find out how similar I am with the moms that are there. The dreams we have for our kids the hopes we have for the world from unhappiness at the return of the rain to you know hopes about the the Redsox the ways in which the women at Rosie's Place are just like the women we sit next to at the movies shop with at the grocery store ride the T with work with there. They're really it's the same world and it's the same kind of human beings. I think that one of the problems charity offer is as good as it is we can be stuck with a culture of of of charity than kind of normalizes just do shit in Rosie's Place does do that.

We recognize that because some people say there will be a permanent underclass no matter what you do. Well not Rosie's Place you know. Because we've got women running up to the State House and talking to senators and representatives about why are we being represented what's the problem here with foreclosures How about welfare. How about 10. How about hunger. How about homelessness. So you're feeding the soul and you're empowering people. Well we attempting to empower the women and they are they're angry they're very clever. They've been able to survive before they came to us to begin with. That's that's clever. And I think that once they know what the problem is systemic way and politically they can go after it and do something about it and I think that is worth a lot. I mean I think that's extraordinary because people do not believe this. Of women who have nothing they have everything believe me they have everything and I think that they are.

I think the great thing about Rosie's Place is that they know we love them and we know they love us. That's very very important when you talk about a family structure we've got it in spades and I think that that's just right. Well that's quite the legacy whether you accept it or not. I don't know if you look at it. Now but I got to tell you that's quite the legacy and it's perfect for a celebration of Women's History Month. So you're just great. And we celebrate our birthday and he's just done the time to do it there you go I believe resurrection. I can't hear Nancy Marsh thank you so much for joining us Kip Tiernan is the founder of Rosie's Place which has found his 30 some years ago on Easter Sunday. So March is the executive director of Rosie's Place. Thank you both for coming in. Coming up a conversation with bestselling writer Walter Mosley. We'll be back after this break stay with us. The.

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nine point seven. WGBH radio. I'm Cally Crossley and this is the Calla Crossley Show. My guest Walter Mosley has written over 30 books since he picked up the pen 25 years ago. He joins us today to discuss his latest crime novel known to evil. It's the second installment of his new detective series featuring the private investigator Leonid McGill. Walter Mosley welcome. Thank you. Thou see this is the great delight listeners can have in your own show. You can have somebody you have greatly admired for many many years and have them sit right across the table for you from you and be I'm very excited about this. Well thank you so much. Great to be here. My bookshelf is laden with all of your books so so know that I'm supporting you. I was one of the ones and I'm sure you heard from us all who was very sad when Easy Rawlins went away after you finished the series about Easy Rawlins. I just couldn't imagine a year without Easy Rawlins but now I

have to tell you I love this guy. Well that's good I'm glad it was very important to to move away from Easy Rawlins partially because the. I wrote that series of books for my father and my father's generation a group of people you know black people living in on the West Coast who there was no literature about there was no literature about it all and that. And so if you don't have any literature you don't have a history because nobody reads history books and so so so the thing is that I wanted to write about those people but now we're in the 21st century and in the 21st century there are still issues and problems and things we have to deals but they're much much much different. And I needed a contemporary character somebody to talk about my world and that's where I came up with Leonid McGill. OK well I'm going to compare and contrast Easy Rawlins and Leonid McGill even though they're two separate characters. And I know writers don't like this but Easy Rawlins series was from 1948 in 1900 for people who don't know the first book came out in 1990

and in 1902 President Clinton was he was running for office and he said you were his favorite mystery writer so that the devil in a blue dress which was the first in that series went through the roof in terms of sales which was great but easy was a World War Two veteran who turned to sleuthing to sort of pay his bills he was in the official private eye if you will right. Yes. So now here we have today need L.T. McGill and this is set in New York as opposed to Los Angeles and it's in 2008 so it's quite a leap in time as you've said the first book is a long fall and this is the second we're talking about. And this guy is older. Then Easy Rawlins and he's a real private eye albeit with a little bit of a shady but a real crooked private eye exactly what he no longer could get but he's been a crooked private eye most of his life so there is a twist to it also. I know I love the twist. Tell us give us a little bit background about Lee and me because he's got this interesting communist father who named him.

Yeah well there are a lot of things about Lee and when he has a father who was a sharecropper who when the father was a kid his parents were getting kicked out of there. There sharecropping House and the Marshall spit on his mother and he decided he hated this Marsland everything he stood for and he was going to be the opposite so he started become a communist and he didn't really understand what being a communist was just such a heavy Russian so he named himself Tolstoy later on he kind of figured out what it was became a union organizer and a socialist and communist he named as children. Linnet and Nikita. But then at the end he kind of home trained them. But at the age when it was 12 he abandoned them. And when it had a had a pretty hard life. Linnet became a detective who did most of his work for the mob. So like if you robbed a bank and the police were after you when it would come to you take some of the evidence planted on somebody else and at least the police would think that the other guy or at least a defense attorney would say well if this other guy had this evidence on him what's up with that.

The other guy might go to prison might not Linda didn't care that many things wrong. But then maybe 2006 2007 a young woman tried basically had somebody murder her and put the evidence on Lee in it because Lynn it had destroyed her father and sent him to prison many years before. And when it all of a sudden realizes that you know I've been a mess and I have done the wrong thing. This is dirty business. Yeah yeah I see it when it is a metaphor for America 30 40 years of really going in the wrong direction. Then all of a sudden when they say hey you know we should start doing what's right. It's an almost impossible task. It's almost impossible for a limit to change directions and certainly for America to. What's it like creating a whole new protagonist because people are going to do the comparison even though the sort of superficial thing I just did here how do you. How was that process like for you. Well I'm happy about you making comparisons. Anybody else making comparisons that's fine with me. I love to write I write every day I write all kinds of books science fiction nonfiction literary

fiction crime fiction. I've written about many many different kinds of characters from Fearless Jones to Socrates for a low to a lot of one off characters. So a new character for me is not you know I don't know because then you know even when you're writing about the same characters there's new characters that appear in those novels that you write about so well here's one of the things that I love about your detective series I mean I've read all your other stuff as well. You have a real community surrounding the main character that is just so interesting. I mean the main character is very interesting but I love the community of people that are involved with him and with a need I love that bug character and get Zephyr if I'm pronouncing her name right. And Katrina this awful wife she's living with I mean I just I love all these details about the character's life. You know one of the things when the people first are writing in the hardboiled tradition and there's definitely a hardboiled serious.

The Hardwell tradition is kind of the the working class American rendition of existentialism and the early characters by Hammond and later Ross McDonald were characters who had no mother no father no sister no brother no wife no children no girlfriend no regular apartment even they might have a car from one book to the next but that's about it. And because of that they could be completely existentialist in the ideal philosophical way meaning to say if I arrest you and I'm going to put you in jail until you tell me the truth well I'll just sit there in jail until you decide let me go because I don't have any responsibilities but Leonid you know he has his children as a wife you might have a dog and I mean there are things that he's responsible for outside of himself and that actually brings a lot more difficulty in trying to live that existentialist existence. Well you've written often about the importance of having a black hero writing about writing Black Heroes which you know both these characters that we've talked about Leonid and

Easy Rawlins and also about the every day ness of black life which I just find you know that sounds so simple but you just don't see it everywhere. And you know and it's interesting too I definitely write about black male heroes because. Hardly anybody writes about black male heroes for some reason. Like men are not supposed to be heroes in America. I'm not really sure why. Even with our president and and also you know that. But it's what I find interesting right now is so different Easy Rawlins is really a definitely a black male hero he's a black man who lives in a black world who's suffering very clear and direct racism and dealing with that. Linnet Well it's different what door he walks through depends on what he experiences and sees and feels and which I find you know really kind of fun and interesting because being a black man in America and 2010 is a lot different to me in a black man America 1970. It's not that we live in a post-racial state it is kind of like a metter racial

and they should have and which you never know where you're going to end up on the roulette wheel. Speaking of that I that's why I like your character who has a dad from Togo and I'm from somewhere else if you get you know naturally blonde hair and all kinds of stuff going on. Yeah it's kind of fascinating. One of the things that I love about your black male heroes is they are men and women there are men that leap off the page that makes the girl go. And the thing that I like about Leonid is this ex-boxer life which seems to add to it. There's just a little piece here listeners that I'm just going to read to you that I I love just the way that you work the boxing into Leonids whole character. I was vulnerable of course all people are innocent and not anyone can be made to look bad. And I had enough skeletons in my closet to make a death row inmate seem angelic. But I wasn't worried not about Toler just overwhelmed by the circumstances of my life. Any good boxer can tell you that if you have a sound strategy and stick to it you always have a shot at winning the

fight. And even if you don't win you can make it through to the final bell throwing at least some doubt on your opponent's claim to victory. What beats a fighter with a good plan isn't power or a lucky punch not usually know what beats are journeymen pugilist is the onslaught of an implacable attack. If your opponent throws so much at you that you get confuse you will necessarily be drawn away from your game plan and defeat it by the complexity of your own misperceptions. Love this manly man. Thank you and the whole X Box thing going on. It's working for me. Actually it sounded pretty good thank you thank you for making it sound like that. Oh I love it. That's why I'm known to evil Walter Mosley Secondly I need McGill mystery. The first was The Long Fall How did you feel people responded to that. The first book and now the second it seems like people like that pretty much I you know I was I was wondering how much they were going to you know. You know at some point or another you can't worry about that you know you can worry would you like it that you like do you like me. You know I

mean but I think that the book is is doing a what. All right I think you know what I intended to do is to address contemporary America and I think it does I think many people are taking it on in that way. Yeah. One of the things that has been written is that you use your detectives particularly I mean you've done a lot of writing some very specifically about race and class and other issues in America so that there's no question about it. But in this fictional context you use this settings to talk about race and to. To have people think about it in different ways through those characters lives. Do you see that you're doing that I mean is that a deliberate thing on your part or it just becomes because of the who the characters are that's what you write about. Well partially it is you know when you're writing about Easy Rawlins in 1062 and he's trying to walk into a restaurant I will survive all of our. Well he's going to have trouble. The guy at the front door is going to stop him. The woman at the podium is going to stop him. The waiter is going to everybody's going to stop him and say Well do you belong here and he's going to have to explain

everybody. Lin is not going to have that problem. Lin it is going to have other problems like for instance when he talks to the most important man in New York and he's sitting in his office. Alfonso Nala says he's as you know Lynn and only my. The receptionist was a black man and you're the only two black Americans who have ever been in this office. Does that surprise you. And Lynette response was just all thing that surprises me is that you recognize that that's true because and because there are subtle differences there are things that a lot of people don't realize. I spend many times in New York I'll be standing in a room and I say in this great NSA you know you know but you realize I'm the only black person in this room and I'll be talking and the people across a while you know that's true. And I know this happens a lot. You know it's but a lot most people if you belong to the majority of people in the room you don't notice Oh that's right you know and and so. So it becomes more subtle and when it's case especially because a lot of people who don't like Lynn it

doesn't have anything to do with race they'd be happy to be hanging out with most def you know. You know with Lenny Kravitz please they say oh yeah I'd love to you know have supper with Barack Obama. You know it's it's particularly Linnet and his you know his tough working class stance that puts people off. Now you've had some of your books turned into movies Denzel Washington of course devil in a blue dress and Don Cheadle was in that one as well playing mouse fabulous character Laurence Fishburne playing Socrates. Always numbered always outgunned. And now I hear that this one may be up for film as well. Yeah I've been working with Jonathan Demme made to do a series for HBO based on long fall and then you know going into you know known to evil and later on when the thrill is gone which is the third one you're already working on the third way. Yeah I'm going on that and you know that so

that's going to be you know hopefully you know I'm working on the script even while I'm on tour right now so it's kind of fun. Now I know you write different characters and now you say you have a lot of people in your head now that you have a favorite. I mean can my favorite character is Linnet son twill. Well I love that character he's my of all the characters I've written. Twill is the favorite and there's another character in these books who has my favorite name Johnny Knightley. I would love that name. Sunny Knightley is a really good I got to say something about your names they're all very interesting. You know you know it's true that you know when you come come from black America but also when you come from poor America you know there are very few things you have you can you have sex now if you have sex you have children you get to name those children so you know you put a lot of energy into these things because you know you don't have a whole bunch of other stuff going on and these things are cheap you know. And so yeah names I think are you know very important you know how we name people how we know people you know people are born with a name you know Bill. But you give him some other kind of name based on you know some talent he

has or doesn't have or whatever. I would be remiss if I didn't point out how generous you are with new writers and influencing them. I loved your book purchased how to write your novel. This year you will write your novel of course. I've never written one. I bought the book anyway and I have observed human interaction at the National Black Book Club Conference and I think that's a wonderful place and the both the readers and the budding writers are so enthused about being around you and you're so supportive that seems to be part of your whole thing. Well you know I am support in some ways I am and some points I'm not I think you know I do what I can for as I wrote This Year You Write Your Novel because you know it's short it's 80 pages and it's everything I know about writing novels I get upset when I see these big 300 page books about writing novels and and you start paging through and they start talking like Shakespeare and Tolstoy and you know Dickens you think God you know if I if you if you have to compare people to those writers you'll never become writers you know. I know I let you know I like to talk to writers and be hopeful

about it and I love writing you know it's like when I wrote that book that said you can write a novel I said. I don't know if that novel ever get published but if you write a novel that will change your life all by itself and I think that's important. Well you see you didn't didn't publish your first one till where you were 33 or 34. Yeah I think my first novels published I was 38 and I think it's important for listeners to know you are a computer programmer. You never either for a long time 16 years as a computer programmer I still do pots and you know I like you know it's I think it's really kind of wonderful to come late to something so because then you don't feel like you deserve it. You know there are a lot of young writers who you know said Well you know I'm this writer I'm this important thing people should be doing these things for me and you know after you've you know lived a long time you know kind of struggling around with a paycheck. If you don't feel like that which I think is good. How long does it take you just to craft these beautiful sentences. This is something that you know we all who wish ourselves to be there. Wonder how long and how long do you massage the thing. How do

you know when it's right you know I do. I do many drafts of an of a novel I go through it many times and work with the sentences and worry about them I'm never satisfied with them. But you know I think a lot of it is you know over like I write three hours a day and those other 21 hours things are going on unconsciously And so when I come back the sentences have changed when I reread what I wrote yesterday. The senses of change in my head and I change around on the page. A lot of the work is unconscious work and I think that's true mostly in art but a lot of the work is on conscious work. Well I'm glad that we're conscious enough to know how fabulous you are and how fabulous this new character is. I've just been delighted to speak to Wachter Mosley thank you so much for joining me. And his new book is known evil. He will be giving a reading tonight at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square. The reading is at 6:00. And you can get tickets at the Harvard bookstore and Harvard Square one of my favorite bookstores. Yeah. For more information visit Harvard dot com. You can keep on top of the Calla Crossley Show by visiting our website WGBH dot org slash

cowlick Crosley. This is the Calla Crossley Show. Today's program was engineered by Alan Magnus and produced by Chelsea Murray is our production assistant as Anna white knuckled me your production of WGBH radio Boston's NPR station for news and culture.