Easy Does It

The classical music playing softly in the background staged a mellow scene against which Mosley stood out. His aplomb was easily read, from the way he rattled off his political views to the way he defined his position within the cadre of black literature. And though his voice was tinged with an air of superiority, it was easily accepted as an air he was allowed to have. Mosley was in town for a speaking engagement with the Brickell Avenue Literary Society, a group of lit-lovers that flies in authors like Philip Caputo and Michael Ondaatje eight times a year. But Mosley was adamant about the fact that he's more than simply the writer of great mysteries who was so famously endorsed by Bill Clinton in 1992. He has published stories that were Afro-futurist science fiction, erotica, politics, and more.

Mosley sat down with New Times one afternoon and told us all we wanted to know, and left nothing to the imagination.

Tell me about your appearance with the Brickell Avenue Literary Society.

It's funny, you know. What I am doesn't change according to my environment, which is unusual in America. It's hard for anybody in America not to be dominated by capitalism, but it's kind of hard for me not to say what I'm thinking. So we had a long talk. I really was talking about race in America and who I am and what I am and where I come from and why I write about black male heroes and like that. And that was kinda fun; it was fun. I talked for 20 to 25 minutes, then they asked questions for another 20 to 25 minutes. A lot of the questions had to do with my political stuff; some had to do with writing and my characters, stuff like that. I answered every question in the room

You're often defined as "mystery writer Walter Mosley." Is that a definition you embrace?

When you're a writer of mysteries, which I was in the very beginning of my career, you're not supposed to write other books and you're not supposed to say other things. You're not supposed to have other kinds of thoughts; you're supposed to be a certain thing. I've published either 29 or 30 books and about 40 percent of them are mysteries, and then I write other things. I refuse to be pigeonholed into this "You're a mystery writer blah, blah, blah" kind of thing. It doesn't interest me.

Speaking of being pigeonholed and defined, black writers are often pushed into the "black interest" section of bookstores. Do you think there's a need for this type of literary segregation?

First thing to say is I'm never there, which is always interesting to me. I am never in Black and African-American Interest and I have no idea why. I'm certainly one of the best-known black male writers in America, but I'm not there. [Laughs] I don't complain about it, though; I just say, "Okay, fine they don't put me there; there must be some reason and I don't care." It's hard for me to see it as a problem. I guess it's too many places for me — bookstores don't know what to do.

But another side of it is, I write these political monographs and I went to a bookstore once and I said, "Where's my political monograph?" I was looking for it and they say, "Oh it's in sociology." I was really upset because who the fuck is gonna find my book in sociology? But there really was nowhere else to put it.

I heard a rumor that Blonde Faith is the last we will read of your most well-known character, Easy Rawlins. Is that true?

No, it's the last one. It's not a rumor. Well, it's a rumor, but it's true.

So I'll have the scoop?

Well, yes, but I do tell everybody. Sorry.

I read that Easy is modeled after Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Is that true?