Basic Black; 3007; Conversation With Walter Mosley

up next on basic black when I come in on you with my butchering knife and I knock you to the floor inside the world the best -selling author Walter Mosley people want you to do the same thing in order for them to be able to know you and feel comfortable with who you are they don't want you to make them feel uncomfortable of course it's a writer's job to make people uncomfortable that's up next on basic black his characters are unusual complex and live well beyond the end of a book writer Walter Mosley creates a world on paper in which his readers feel at home good evening I'm Darren Duarte tonight on basic black we catch up with Walter Mosley and talk to him about his latest book walking the dog and his concept of black male heroes as I give the cops a

killer by tomorrow morning I'm going to Hollywood has embraced his novels and his characters in 1995 Denzel Washington breathes a life into the role of easy Rollins for Mosley's first hit novel devil in a blue dress and in 1997 actor Lawrence Fishburne starred as Socrates Fortlow the flawed hero and street philosopher of the HBO original picture always outnumbered what you work at brother I'm looking for work what you think I do yeah got a fast -eye got a quick tongue actually that makes your teeth common teeth I don't like these much you look at Walter's writing at the surface you look at it and you go okay that's pretty simple it's pretty basic but the fact that it is simple makes it very complex much in the way that some of Shakespeare's lines are very simple but there's layers and of things underneath them to play to bring to

the situations it's like in a fight Peter David the heist man serving five years once said to Socrates and the Indiana state penitentiary if you hesitate you're dead if you think or wonder or ask why you might as well just put a gun to your head because there's no time for thinking on the job and a poor man is on the job 24 hours a day at 47 Walter Moseley is riding a wave of literary and financial success in the 10 years since the 1990 publishing of devil in the blue dress he's become celebrated as one of president Clinton's favorite authors he's published 10 more novels and has written for television as well as for the theater his first play since you've been gone was workshopped and performed as a stage -dreeding the play is being considered for the 2000 season of the Hartford stage company in Connecticut defying literary classification Moseley recently explored the genre of science fiction with his novel blue light and he just published two new works of

nonfiction he's the editor of black genius a collection of essays on the state of black America and working on a chain gang which looks at the next millennium self -identity and the role that race will play in the new century before us he's a writer who refuses to accept limitations often of easy rolling series which I'm sure many of you know in love and we would like to welcome you here to come here today to make more books and give a big welcome to Thank you very much I haven't been a mystery in four years but everybody calls me I got interviewed interjune so last night they said Walter Moseley is a mystery writer he writes mysteries and this is his new book starring Socrates -Fortlough woman introducing a book starring somebody it's like a wild thing you know and it's like it's not a mystery and it's not starring it's not a movie Lawrence Fishburne is not in the

book you know it's a wild thing you know it's a what it's just a wild notion but I but I'm trying to escape this notion of being a mystery writer not that I mind writing mysteries you know but you know it's people manage not to take you seriously like when you get in like I'll be some place you know in New York everybody's in New York and we all know each other right so I'm say some party with Tony Morrison and we're talking there you know and somebody comes up with somebody else and they say well I'd like you to introduce you to Tony Morrison the novelist and Walter Moseley the mystery writer you know that's really a sad thing I said no I write novels don't go yeah yeah yeah how do you define yourself as a writer you know there's all kinds of things I can be a black writer I can be a mystery writer I can be an urban gritty writer it's a an effect of capitalism you know I mean capitalism wants everybody to specialize because you want to get the optimum profit so there's you don't have a lot of time to kind of wander around why I want to do a little of this I want to do a little that you know if you're working on the production line and you put in the left

front tire of on the pinto right you can't come in when they say I want to put in air conditioners today you know you can't so well I'm interested in working around the trunk today you know they don't like that and the same thing with with being a writer people want you to do the same thing in order for them to be able to know you and feel comfortable with who you are they don't want you to make them feel uncomfortable of course it's a writer's job to make people uncomfortable so I try to ignore it why don't you feel it's important to write about and explore the worlds of black men who are on the fringes of society one of the things that I write about the thing I write about the most which is black male heroes I think there's a thing really left out of the canon in America that there is not a whole bunch of room for black male heroes but black men have done the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing are the wrong thing have been wrong will be wrong only thing they can do right you know is you know let's say sports you know but then they you know they drink too much when they do that or whatever you know I mean this is there's an issue that there's a standard that black men never seem to be able to live up to and therefore are always considered to have failed completely I write about

these characters in a completely different way because I know we're flawed I mean yeah you got to be flawed coming where we come from in this country but how we overcome those flaws is so interesting and for me exhilarating that that's what I like to write about Mosley's first attempt at a flawed black male hero was mouse got blood on my coat easy Rollins is violent sidekick portrayed in the film devil in the blue dress by scene -stealing actor Don Cheadle Moses a bad dude he's a sociopath but he's also a black male hero we don't have to go find nobody I don't change my mind I don't need your kind of help mouse look at you man could a damn smile in your neck you gonna tell me you don't need my kind of help you ain't even been in my house five minutes and shot somebody already mouse come on

easy come in on this thing man now I'm not seeking redemption for mouse but it turns out I don't have to everybody likes him anyway the reason is is that mouse if easy comes up to mouse my easy says I'm in trouble man so what's wrong man what's wrong baby I help you he said well you know that IRS is after me IRS all right so what's his name you know I kill him no man that's not gonna work if you kill him they can just send another one say send another one I kill him too they're gonna get tired after a while say then I burned down that whole bill and burn down all your records and you'd be free now when I say that to audiences no matter who it is a black audience a white audience makes everybody laughs because everybody feels the oppression of the government a big brother of that that system which organizes them in ways that they don't want to be organized IRS being the perfect example of that but there's all kinds of forms of that happening to people all kinds of you know poor people and disadvantaged people being sent out and killed in wars and mistreated and robbed and you know and then you know fired from their jobs for nothing you know

Walter you write a lot about heroes who were your heroes as a child my father was my hero when I was a kid my father was there for me no matter what my father says I am there for you Walter nothing can get to you until it gets through me and nothing is getting through me and I was so confident that my life was secure as a child because of that that you know that my father was the ideal you know I was a short guy was like five seven he you know he was you know funny and affable and and you know it was not you know he was in no way imposing like some other people in my family people I knew but I knew that my father was the baddest man around the other thing about my father's my father told stories when I was a kid he was a great storyteller he could tell a bad joke and you'd be laughing kicking yourself for laughing because you know it's a bad joke but he would tell these stories and and that was the way we were you know we were poor when I was a kid but you know not poor like we couldn't eat or anything but just like everybody going to the movies on Saturday night probably wasn't happening so people would come over and visit

everybody would tell stories there was a great deal of humor in it but you know humor and the kind of things like my cousin Helen would would be talking about a night that her and my father's first wife were at a bar and a man was my father's wife was flirting with some guy and the guy got a little too fresh so he goes over and tells my father pulls out a knife says well you know I get him you know and so my cousin Helen who was stronger than my father and most other men pulls a knife from my father's hand and says that's okay Roy I kill him because you know I kill him I'd be out by morning because you know when a black woman killed a black man the deeps out that time the judge would say well you know he shouldn't have been messing with her and so she swung the knife at the guy and she missed and she swung all the way around and she stabbed my father in the leg and so the guy ran because you know my father's bleeding and everybody said let's get out of here and they would tell that story and everybody would be laughing they'd be like this would be a funny story you know it's terrible but in a way it was just life you know and hundreds of stories like that kind of coming one after another informed me as a writer

I think while growing up Walter learned the art of storytelling by his dad's example he also learned never to let racial barriers be an obstacle his parents defied racism by marrying in 1950s segregated America while working as a custodian Leroy met Ella Slatkin a secretary in a Los Angeles public school and the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants Ella fell for Roy's smile but a state ban on interracial marriages prevented the couple from marrying until the mid 50s Walter was born in 1952 and the family lived in south central Los Angeles you know somebody asked me the other night they said must have been unusual for a black father and a white mother in the black neighborhood and I said well it was much more usual in the black neighborhood than it was in the white neighborhood this is the first time I

didn't feel anything there was a lot of stuff going on in my family I just didn't know about because nobody made me face it my parents ignored it and the people in my family didn't express it to me which was good you know the black family saying why is he got to marry that white woman thinking that being Jewish was being white which is a mistake and you know my and my mother's family thinking God marrying a negro I mean well I mean what's that you know then they were very everybody was confused but you know ultimately everybody got together everybody got along the family you know learned to like each other and relationships you know blossomed and it was fine you live with racism like most black men well everybody I mean and you know the thing is that we live with it internally and externally I mean all kinds of different people deal with racism in all kinds of different ways one of the problems that black people in America have is that we've been broken down emotionally over the centuries during you know slavery and the aftermath of slavery so -called freedom and when we in this period of time when we've been

physically and emotionally and intellectually broken down the notion of racism has become part of us so it's not only that somebody is saying you're inferior but it's also you and me and you know the people around us having some suspicions that it might be true having some worries that maybe I am inferior maybe I can't get along oh I see my people are not doing this or not doing that I'm much worried about our own feelings of racism that I'm worried about somebody not liking me you know because you know my mother's Jewish my father's black coming from you know from a Jewish background you know a lot of Jews are hated by a lot of people you know Alan Sherman says you know this one hates that one and that one hates that one but everybody hates the Jews well he's right about that there's a lot of you know prejudice against Jews but the Jews they never wonder when racism is going to end they say if you ask a Jew said when's anti -Semitism going to end I'm worried about is how I'm gonna make it till tomorrow don't talk to me about ending

and you know I think there's something to learn in the black community from that to be less worried about who doesn't like you when they're going to stop disliking you and worry about what you think of yourself and when you when you're going to take yourself seriously this is the most difficult because you know we have a lot of power in the black community in America a lot of power cultural political economic you know and and and not really capitalizing on it as much as we could recently I published a book and published with the black publisher black classic press and I spoke with many black writers saying you should also publish with this press or another black press that you want to support because we need to support our businesses and you know the kind of reaction well you know I don't know if you can trust you know I mean I'm much rather trust and then name some other group of people with money so black people and I'm very good with money so you and these all these notions kind of like I fill up our lives in different parts you know sometimes we're aware of it sometimes we're not sometimes we're convinced that it's fact and not a prejudice but a truce

can you tell us about your journey creating the character socrates fortlow I know he was first introduced and always outnumbered always outgunned and now he's in walking the dog I base my main character socrates fortlow on his namesake the original socrates the philosopher the reason I wrote about socrates is I had been talking to a lot of people about easy Rawlins and easy Rawlins is a smart guy very kind of but he's a sleuth he's really like a detective not even really an amateur detective but though he because he doesn't have a certificate we call him amateur but he's kind of removed he's that kind of removed character who comes into a room and he thinks he's been successful if he never has to say a word but he's a very smart man he reads a lot he reads Hadrian's journals he reads Mark Twain and you know and Milton and you know he reads and whenever I would talk to people about it in audiences they you know knowing that I had a biracial background would say well the reading part that must be your white side huh

and I go you know first I go what white side and then I go black people think as I decided back then I I want to make myself a black philosopher all black people know what thinking is like in the black community we consider very moral questions always thinking about moral questions you know you're living in a house and you got you know wife and a little kid you're eating off plastic cutlery guide out the corner is selling stainless steel you know cutlery now you know he must have stolen it but you have to talk to yourself to figure out why you shouldn't go buy that because you know you be you're humiliated when people come over and they're eating off plastic spoons and forks you know so the whole basis of philosophy is figuring out what's right and what's wrong what's good and what's bad who am I in this world and why do I take the actions that I take Socrates takes it to a whole other degree because he's done some really awful things and he has to come to grips with them tell me why you decided to create a protagonist like Socrates Fortlow a convicted rapist and murderer Socrates has committed some heinous crimes he knows it he was wrong he did things just as bad while he

was in prison now he's out of prison and he's seeking redemption so the thing that I need the the audience to understand is that this man is seeking redemption I don't expect them to forgive him I don't expect them to say well listen I'm gonna go out and meet me a double murderer rapist and invite him into my house have dinner with him I don't expect that neither the Socrates if young tea right here pull me to the side and say that he heard it from Brad who got it straight from Lydell who was told by his wife's girlfriend in keeping with the teachings of his namesake Molesley Socrates also argues that the unexamined life is not worth living only the street wisdom of this philosopher is dispensed with a deadly threat of violence when I come in on you with my butchering knife and I knock you to the floor when I let my knee down on your chest with my full weight and you feel your breastbone crack open when I put that knife to your throat and you feel it tearing through your flesh and the

blood going all down your chest what would you do then say what man will it manage to keep his shaking down to about a fidget if you could go back and fix it if you could go back and when that woman smiled that you just smiled back and walked away what if you could go back before I ripped your flesh open like that what would you do then that's what I'm asking you Willie you can't go back man what I wanted to do with him is I want to create a modern day philosopher in the black community who asked the important questions of people of himself and of other people around him not of white people really because that's not his concern but people who live in his community you got to touch a man you want to get touched uh -huh and how is Moseley Street philosopher received by his readers well I sat down with a local book club whose members included three judges we talked about their perceptions of the character most of you at this table are working in justice system lawyers judges put it the right way were you surprised when you first read this book and you found out about who the main character was

the protagonist was and what his past was and how he turned out was anyone surprised by that at the beginning I kept rooting for him when he was making all his choices you know when he was undecided about taking the promotion I kept saying take it you know you're you've outgrown it you've moved past your past and that's what's impressive and yet he always seems seems stuck by it even though it was easy for me to say yes this man can be a hero in the back of my mind I was thinking all right one of my sons brings this man home it says this is my friend this is lot of positive things about him what would my reaction be would it be so easy for me to now call him a hero and I think I'd have a problem because of society's depiction of what a hero should be I think I would still have that conflict it's easy for me to read a book and say this man can be a hero in my eyes but do I want him to be a role model for my children for young black males and in the neighborhood

I haven't resolved that issue but the point is I think that Sevi saying here is that would you give him that chance to even prove that which I think what Mosey does a lot of times is it tells people or it tells us that here I put this man in this book but in real life a Socrates may not get the chance to even prove that he's a hero because no one may even give him a job no one will give him the opportunity to prove that he may be something else that he was once before. The way things are going today in the political climate in this country he wouldn't have an opportunity because they don't want to give anybody an opportunity it's all about punishment and want you down stay down. Do you guys think that this concept of redemption that Moseley has is he trying to speak to some of the social ills and or needs in the black community? I think most black authors try and do that in some way when they're right there novels that are similar to this they try to send a message some or more you know. This guy really read

this book this time. Pointing it about it and some are not but I think that that he was definitely trying to send out a message. About redemption? You know how times he bluffs us on how many books he reads? You how many? How many audios? about the responsibilities as a man as a human being to his family? The responsibilities of a man and his family and and how the woman feels if you know the guy gets put in jail or he gets killed and what's left is that the women are tired of the black men fighting and killing themselves and end up with the women and kids at home and with no hope. I don't think it was getting on just black men though I think it was getting on the culture in general because I think it was very critical of the or justice critical of the women. The book was very pointed about in terms of women and they're talking about black men specifically that you know when you're doing all of this we're left here when you're either in jail or dead. What do think of Moseley's writing style?

Did it pull you in? It did. I mean it's very it's obviously very conversational and very quick and he can tell that he's been a mystery enough writer that he's writing you know short paragraphs short sentences but yeah I got I was very drawn into it. Baldwin was my hero in terms of literature the issues he raised in his writing style. Moseley with so few words I can almost compare him to Baldwin in terms of the way he makes you think about the issues. The thing that I guess me is that when you were talking about the brevity the way he wrote and sometimes when I felt reading something I was right there on he says he's talking about going to Bob's he went to Bob's used appliances and he described it this way sitting immediately inside the door Bob's used appliances was a certainly looking Mexican man his gaze locked with Socrates's and there was a moment of recognition the two men had never met but they had something in common a toughness a solid a solidarity self -reliance the nod they shared was the consolation of the

console consolation of heroes home from a war that was lost I mean when you read it I feel like I'm walking in bobs of appliances and there's this guy. Walter Moseley's ear for dialogue and literary style is born out of his personal journey as a writer and the lyrical expression of art within African -American culture. I really try to base a lot of my writing on the oral tradition so first certain first starting with my father telling me stories regaling me with with stories about his history about our family's history and then later on Langston Hughes certainly Zora Neale Hurston even Maya Angelou with her approach to poetry and her approach to autobiography. look more at fiction as a kind of a music of language and words jazz and blues not so much like a like an intellectual or a scholarly enterprise but more that we're speaking and we're talking in a very musical way we're trying to convince people to seduce people with the words and

ideas you know I love that I think that that I think the oral tradition for black people in America is so musical in its base and so when I write a novel even now what I'll do is I'll write a novel 10 -12 drafts of a novel and then I'll read the whole novel out loud into a tape recorder and then I'll play it back to me and then any sentence any any piece of dialogue any piece of language that is doesn't work I change it you know and I you know that's that's how I feel about the about writing I think that it is based in the oral tradition and so that's why when you know when somebody asks me so what writer most influences you will the writers are the people who used to tell stories on street corners or in my house you know and then the people who come off those Zora Neale Hurston or Langston Hughes even James Baldwin what's next for Walter Mosley gonna do a couple of movies for HBO I'm gonna do maybe a television series about Easy Rollins have written a book called the man in my basement about a black man who was a white man imprisoned in his basement

I've written the new Easy Rollins novel I'm working on a bad boy Brawley Brown maybe work a little bit more on some science fiction some short stories about young black America you know as much as I can get a full plate well you know once you get a chance to be able to do stuff you should take advantage of it you know the the whole idea of being a black writer in America and having the opportunity to write to publish to to say things you have to take advantage of it can't waste time on that and people know Walter Mosley has a lot to say for all of us at basic black I'm Darren Duarte good night your questions and comments are important to us so drop us a line at basic black 125 Western Avenue Boston Mass 02134 or visit our website at WGBH .org

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