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Author InterviewsWalter Mosley, Uneasy StreetOn August 11, 1965, a routine traffic stop in a residential section of South Central Los Angeles known as Watts sparked the largest riots in American history. Over the next six days, thirty-four people were killed, more than a thousand were injured, and over two hundred million dollars worth of property had been stolen, destroyed, or burned to the ground.
In nine previous mysteries, Mosley has thrown his hero one messy problem after another. As Easy has embraced the dubious relationships and moral compromises necessary to navigate the labyrinth of South Central Los Angeles, he has become for readers a sort of tour guide through the racially-charged underbelly of urban America. Street-wise, cynical, world-weary, and possessed of the wisdom born of hard-won experience, Easy long ago added his name to the shortlist of great hardboiled heroes. But in Little Scarlet, Easy digs deeper into the conundrums of his world than ever before. As riots in Watts are winding down, the police discover the corpse of Nola Payne, a young black woman known on the street as Little Scarlet. Afraid that any attempt to investigate the murder will only reignite the violence, the police turn to Easy for help. Easy agrees to find Nola's killer, though on his own terms. In doing so, he not only exposes the roots of black rage, he also strikes a new and decidedly uneasy alliance with white power. Little Scarlet is potent allegory, incisive social commentary, not to mention a gripping read. It is also Walter Mosley's best novel to date.
Farley: You grew up in LA, correct? Walter Mosley: Yes Farley: I'm curious what memories you have of the Watts riots? Mosley: I was thirteen-years-old during the Watts riots. I have two memories: one which you'd think would have affected me writing this book but which didn't, and another which you would not have expected. The first is that I was a member of an acting group called the Afro-American Traveling Actors Association, and at the height of the riots we went down to perform our play. But nobody was going to plays because they were either rioting or fighting rioting or hiding from rioting. So we drove back to West Los Angeles right through the riots. I saw all the fighting and police and people lying unconscious or, you know, dead on the street, and all that kind of stuff. But that had less of an impact on me than the night I came into a room and found my father drinking and sobbing. And I said, "What's wrong." And he said, "It's the riots." "Are you afraid," I said. And he goes, "No, I want to go out there and riot. I want to fight. I want to burn. I want to shoot at these people." And I was very afraid, and I said, "Are you going to?" And he went, "No, I'm not, because it's wrong to hurt people you don't know, who may not deserve it, and it's wrong to burn down your own property. But I want to," he said. And that had a really big impact on me. Farley: After the '92 riots in LA following the Rodney King verdict, Dan Quayle said: "When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in LA, my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame." Doesn't that accurately sum up an attitude that was prevalent after the Watts riots, as well? And if so, how would you respond to that attitude? Mosley: Well, you know, listen, he's not wrong, in so far as it goes. If you shoot somebody and kill them, and somebody asked, Who killed that guy?, I'd have to say, Well, you killed him. Farley: But the unstated message in Quayle's comment is: And we therefore aren't obliged to think any more about it. Mosley: Exactly. And that's the problem. For instance, after 9/11 some people asked, Why do people around the world hate Americans? and then answered Because they hate freedom! I don't think so. There are reasons people hate Americans, and these reasons have to be addressed. One of the problems that people from Dan Quayle's ilk have is that if you ask these questions, they believe you are trying to exonerate whatever actions somebody took. Now, of course, my father answered that question No. He didn't riot because he couldn't exonerate himself for doing it. And I wouldn't either. If you murder somebody... if you get on top of a building and aim a rifle at somebody and shoot it and kill them, that's murder. And I won't stand in the way of you standing trial for murder. But the Watts riots are a metaphor for all of the rage that existed in all of the hearts of almost every African American. And that's what you have to deal with. And that's how America responded. You know, people sitting in Atlanta, Georgia going, You mean all those black people I see every day really hate me, to the level where they could understand taking out a gun and shooting at me? To understand that that's the problem. Farley: That sense of seething rage, even bitterness, comes through loud and clear in the book. Easy's anger is palpable. But some of the other characters are more defined by self-loathing than rage, especially Howard. I'm curious how you see the relationship between those two feelings. Are they related? Or is one a reaction to the other? Mosley: Not only are they related, I think they're the same thing. You're born with a love for yourself, but you learn to despise yourself: because people in school think you're stupid, or because whenever the police see you they think that you're a criminal to the degree where you finally believe that you're a criminal. It's like that Chris Rock line where he says the police stopped him one day in his own car and before they were finished he believed he'd stolen his own car. In school you're treated as ignorant and told that you're ignorant and people get angry at you if you show any intelligence. You can't get good jobs. You can't hope for a future for yourself or for your children. Even while all that's going on, you still know it's not true. Somewhere in your heart you know it's not true. On one level you're thinking it's true, and you're thinking Oh, I'm just another nigger, basically. And on the other hand you're feeling That is not true; I'm better than this and I deserve better than this. That paves the way for rage. And rage shows itself in many different ways. In the mother who kicks her son out of the house. And the son who hates all black women who love white men. All kinds of things happen there. And as Easy points out in the book, at one point the anger and the rage are so great you just go out on a hot summer day and start burning everything down. And that rage is partially exposed by people destroying their own community, which of course is self-loathing. So, you know, yeah, they are the same thing. But it's a very complex thing. Farley: You also seem to be suggesting in the book that the Watts riots were a turning point for the black community. Throughout the novel, Easy notes ways that he's more courageous than he was before the riots. He carries himself with a little more pride, or even defiance. But there is also that scene with the sentry... Mosley: Yeah, he kind of chose sides. Farley: Right. You write: "The sentry took his job seriously. Who was the enemy? Black people. Even though he was colored himself it was his job to bar our entry and he intended to keep us out. Even though I didn't know it at the time, that was the beginning of the breakup of our community. It was the first time you could see that there was another side to be on. If you identified with white people, you had a place where you were welcomed in." I was wondering if you could elaborate on that. One, in what way has the community broken up? And two, what does it mean to choose sides? Mosley: Well, the powers that be, which are represented more by money than by race, needed to recruit people in the black community to do their work for them. Now, Easy is one of the people they recruit, because he's looking for the murderer of Nola Payne. He's looking to help the police solve this crime, so they can keep black people from expressing their rage. Farley: And he knows he's being used. Mosley: Yes, he knows he's being used, but he's being rather canny about it, so he's not allowing them to take him over. This sentry, on the other hand, is protecting property against other black people. He really was angry at Easy for daring to want to go into the place where he works. And, at least at that moment in time, this guy is protecting the system that is working against him. He is in essence the weapon of this establishment against Easy and people like Easy. Farley: It makes me think of the handful of prominent blacks in the country who are perceived by some members of the black community as taking sides against blacks. I think of Harry Belafonte's comment about Colin Powell. What did he call him? Mosley: He called him a house nigger, or a house slave, I don't remember which one he said. Farley: And Clarence Thomas, of course, is widely criticized in the black community. Mosley: Yeah, well, you know Clarence and Condoleeza and Colin are like that sentry, yeah. Farley: You think that's fair? Mosley: Well, I don't know if it's fair, and a lot of people would probably disagree with me, but that's what I think. Farley: Of course, it is also significant that our current president, a very conservative Republican, chose a black woman as one of his closest advisers. Mosley: Which is going to make a big difference for black people in the future. Not today, but in the future. In a way, he may be working against himself by doing that. Farley: How so? Mosley: Because he'll open the door. Now you can have black women as powerful as Condoleeza Rice in high government. Farley: Do you really think that George Bush would care to keep that door closed? Mosley: George Bush himself? I don't know the answer to that question. And I don't care. I think he sees black America in general as having antipathy toward him, and therefore doesn?t consider black America his constituency. And he's right about that. But whether he's trying to keep people down.... I think that there's a system in America where black people are kept out of the vote, kept out of the mainstream in America. There's a great deal of racism against poor black people, not necessarily so-called middle class or upper-class black people, but certainly against poor black people in America. There are great barriers erected against black Americans. Farley: And often the people who aren't behind the barriers don't see them and so don't believe they exist. Mosley: Especially some younger people, saying, you know, I worked hard. I made it. How come he can't do it? Farley: Which brings to mind Bill Cosby, who recently stirred up a hornets' nest by criticizing poor blacks. Mosley: Yeah, but Bill's comments are made out of love. They may be inappropriate at times, they may be critical to the level that they are not helpful, at times, but he's not saying them because of a dislike or an antipathy towards black people. He's saying it because of love. And I think most black people know that. You know, I'm critical of the way he's made some of his criticism. But I can't say that Bill doesn't like black people. Bill loves black people. And he has all of these great hopes and aspirations, and he feels in a way cheated by certain things that have happened. I think that the reasons these things have happened go far beyond the people he's criticizing. However, I'm not going to say he didn't have the right to say what he said. Farley: The Watts riots were in 1965. Then there were riots in '92 after the Rodney King verdict. I'm curious whether you have any insight into why LA seems to be such a flash point for racial anger. Mosley: Well, the Rodney King trial happened in LA, so that's why. Farley: But that wouldn't have been such a big deal if there hadn't already been a reservoir of anger there. Mosley: But also, the riots in '92 weren't strictly race riots. Yes, there was the Rodney King decision, but there were all kinds of people rioting: white people, Chicanos, Asians. And the Watts riots were just black people, and they were just in Watts. The '92 riots happened all over the city, and all kinds of people were involved. You couldn't really say it was a black race riot. You couldn't even call it a race riot because white people were doing it, too. And in the sixties you have Harlem, you have Detroit which was a monster riot you have Tampa (maybe Tampa was in the seventies, but it happened), there were a few places. So it's not just LA. But the LA riots were the big riots, the most impactful. And why is that? I don't know. But, you know, most big cities experienced riots in the sixties. And when Martin Luther King was killed, there were riots everywhere. Farley: Yes, well I think anyone could see why there were riots after that. Mosley: You can see why there are riots any time. Four hundred years of oppression, you know, and people still want to mistreat you. Your kids are still being arrested and thrown into jail when white kids are not being arrested and thrown into jail for doing the exactly same thing. When you know for a fact that every night black men are arrested and beaten. And I'll say, for no reason because there is no reason. Once you're arrested, you shouldn't be beaten. That's not the police's job. But it happens to black people. And they have had no recourse for hundreds of years. It happened before the riots, during the riots, and after the riots. So what are you going to do? A guy says, I remember last week a cop grabbed me and took me down to the prison. And they beat me within an inch of my life. So why can't I riot? And that becomes the answer. So why can't I go out and fight and burn. Why can't I do that? Didn't they do that to me? And, really, there's no answer. Because everybody would agree. Take some white guy living in Orange County, if the police systematically took his children and the children of other people in his neighborhood and took them down to the police station and just beat them mercilessly, and then framed them for crimes they didn't commit, kept them from their rights, kept them from all this stuff, they would be out there fighting. Anyone would be out there fighting. It's not a black thing. It's just not happening to these other people, so they don't do it. Farley: I'd like to change the subject and ask you a few questions about writing. When you write a novel, what do you hope to accomplish? What effect do you hope to have on your reader? Mosley: Well, the simple answer is that when you write a novel, what you want to do is tell the story well. That is ultimately what writing a novel is about. You want to tell a story well. Farley: And you are definitely a readers' writer. Mosley: How could one not be a readers' writer? Farley: Well, I could name a few novels... Mosley: But people read those novels! Farley: In another interview you said something to the effect that if you write in an obtuse style, if what you write is very hard for people to understand, then you are not doing your job as a writer. Mosley: That's what I think, though! There are a lot of people who don't think that. Take Finnegan's Wake. Some people like Finnegan's Wake, like reading it. I find it really painful and very hard to read and I go Oh my God, does it really need to be this complex? I think Joyce would say, Yes, it did. And so he's answered my question. But I find it hard to get there. I believe that writing should be a clear pane of glass. There's a story on the other side of the glass and you shouldn't be distracted by the lens. Farley: Do you have a specific emotional reaction you are trying to evoke in a reader? Mosley: I would say yes, but yes with every sentence, with every paragraph, with every section and chapter. In one chapter it might be a kind of scintillating, physical sexuality. The next might be a very emotional, even philosophical chapter that might cause you to question yourself or someone else or someone's actions. Something might be very complex, where it's very puzzle-like and you have to work it out. But that would be due to the whole book. What I want you to get out of it in the end I don't know, because people get different things out of books. If you tell me when you read Little Scarlet I said something to you, I might tell you that I didn't mean that. But that's what you got. And if you've read it, Little Scarlet belongs to you just as much as it belongs to me. You know what I'm saying? I'm not trying to tell you what you should think. I don't believe in writers as teachers. I think what writers do, if they're successful, is open dialogue. So we can think and wonder and go different places with it. Farley: How in general do you come up with plot and character? Do you have any systematic way that you work out your plots? Or do you just discover the story as you go? Mosley: I discover it as I go along, as a rule. Even if I were to outline it, I discover it as I go along. Farley: How does that work when you're writing a mystery, which is very plot driven? Mosley: Well, writing is rewriting. You write the first draft and it doesn't work. But then you discover those things that you wanted to happen and you go back through it and you keep rewriting it until it does. One thing is that a novel has to be too big to be held in your head. And so you have to allow yourself to make mistakes. If you don't make mistakes, you're not writing. There are some people who do write books that are so simple that they don't really need to do any experimenting. But I don't call those novels. You know, it's writing, it's fiction, but it's kind of weak. Farley: And how has the experience of writing a novel changed for you over the years? Has it gotten any easier? Or does it stay the same? Mosley: It's not really a lot different. It's always the same level of difficulty. I'm a better writer now. And that's not necessarily to say that I'm writing better books, but I'm a better writer. But the better you become, the more challenges you find. For every barrier you go over, you find another problem. You get better, but it's the same level of difficulty. Farley: I read the Best American Short Stories you edited and I was curious what that experience was like for you, how you got involved. Did they just call you up? Mosley: Yes, they just called me up and asked if I wanted to do it. I was shocked, actually, that they wanted me. Farley: And how was that as an experience? Mosley: Well, it was hard work going through all those stories. You're fed stories by a few people who go through everything. There's no way you're going to go through everything, so a lot of people bring you stories. And I really believe that a good story and good writing don't always happen in the same work. You can have very good writing, which might have been a good story at some point. But seeing that we've already heard it about twenty times, with the same quality of writing, it's kind of meaningless. You know, Well, I've read that story. And you can have a wonderful story that the writing is lacking in. You know what I mean? So, for instance, if you're going to write a coming-of-age story, it better be really interesting, because we've heard this story. We have Salinger already. We've heard about the young white guy, or the young black guy, or whoever the young Chinese woman coming of age, you know, with the father who wanted to do this and the mother that wanted to do that. You better show me something really new. And also I argued with them because, listen, this the best stories in America. It is not the Best American Literary Stories. It is not the Best American Iowa Writers Stories, or New Yorker Stories. You know, it's the Best American Stories. Maybe the best story is a crime story. For instance, Doctorow's story in that collection is a crime story. I don't think he thinks so, but that's a crime story. There are all kinds of possibilities for stories, and if I can't see every different kind, how would I know which ones are the best? And I'm not sure, but I think it's the first time that Best American Short Stories kind of went off and allowed a couple of genre stories to be considered as some of the best. I might be wrong, but I think that's true. I didn't let them show me who the writers were or what the magazines were that they came from, and, on the whole, I was able not to know that. So there's a wide swath of fiction in that collection. I think the magazine best represented was a small magazine called Tin House with three stories. Farley: They're from Portland. Mosley: Is that where it is? Farley: Yes, the tin house the magazine is named for is just down the street from us here. Mosley: But as a rule these collections don't pay that much attention to the smaller magazines. And I'm not even sure why. So I felt I was doing something different, or beginning to do something different. I know that there are the Best Mystery Stories and the Best Science Fiction Stories and the Best Essays and stuff like that. But the best stories means the best stories, no matter who wrote them, and no matter what genre they were written in. I know this one has done extraordinarily well. A lot of people bought this collection, and I'm very proud of it. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do next year.
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Don't Miss
Why did this happen? What fueled the volcanic rage that was unleashed in Watts just one year after the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act? And what were the lasting effects of the Watts riots on rapidly evolving race relations in America? These questions lie at the heart of Walter Mosley's exceptional new novel starring amateur sleuth Easy Rawlins. 