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Foreword
Walter Mosley has made his career out of doing the unexpected
and the unpredictable. In creating Easy Rawlins, the reluctant
and existentially minded black detective of his bestselling
series of mystery thrillers, he has broken the color barrier
of the largely white arena of crime fiction. That same series
has brought him the sort of mainstream literary acclaim and
stature usually denied to crime writers. He serves on the
board of important literary organizations, is studied in the
college curriculum, appears in the Norton Anthology of African
American Literature, and dines on occasion at the White House.
He published Gone Fishin', an Easy Rawlins prequel of
sorts with Black Classics Press, a small, black-owned
publisher, as a gesture of solidarity with the
African-American community of writers, publishers, and
booksellers—for no advance. His straightforward literary
novel of the blues, RL's Dream, signaled his ability
to write powerfully and successfully outside the mystery
genre. In short, he breaks a lot of rules and shatters many
preconceptions.
In November Walter Mosley will extend his range even further
with his new book, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned.
In a cycle of stories set in present-day Watts he introduces
a compelling new hero, Socrates Fortlow: an ex-convict with
a violent past and a difficult present who must struggle, in
his own way, with many of the issues that face the black
community. As his first name implies, he is a seeker after
truth and these are moral tales—but the moral is always
one that the reader must discover along with Socrates. That
Socrates Fortlow's adventures have wide resonance is
indicated by the fact that a film adaptation of Always
Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, starring Laurence
Fishburne and scripted by Mosley himself, aired on HBO and is
now available on home video.
An Interview with Walter Mosley
We spoke to Walter Mosley about his new book and hero in
his sparsely furnished working office in the Empire State
Building.
What was the genesis of Socrates Fortlow?
WM: I was thinking one day some years ago about writing
a collection of stories about the kind of complex philosophy
that generates itself in the inner city, from the mouths of
the people who start this philosophy. You know, people's way
of approaching and living life is not simply something you
study in universities, it's historical, and so I thought that
a black Socrates—because I see Socrates in the West as one of
the, if not the, most important philosopher—would be an
interesting character. So I talked to a few people about the
idea, and no one really got it or understood it, so I put it
away. And then, one day I was asked by an editor to write a
short story for the catalogue for the Edward Hopper collection
at the Whitney and I thought, "They'll never be interested in
anything I write." But I remembered the Socrates stories, so
I said, "Well, I'll try to write that character now, fitting
it into this assignment", which I did. I was so happy about
it; I was absolutely sure that the Whitney would go crazy and
not want it, but indeed, they loved it. But I didn't even care
about that because what happened was, I loved it, and I
thought "This is certainly the voice for this man."
As his name implies, Socrates is by nature an experienced
philosopher and teacher. What issues does he ponder and what
lessons does he mean to teach?
WM: Well, I think he's a real teacher in the way of
Socrates. I don't know if I picked Socrates because he is one
of the greatest philosophers, but also because Socrates
believed he was the important philosopher because he wasn't
fooled into thinking that he had more knowledge than someone
else. His idea in life was that you had to discover knowledge,
you had to go through life and you had to discover what was
right and what was wrong, which is the same question that
Socrates Fortlow asks, "What is right and what is wrong?" As
a teacher, he is also a student. He's learning. So in some of
the stories you'll find he's actually taking somebody and
teaching them what's right, or he's actually giving them a
lesson or showing them something. But in many of the stories
he himself is the student; he gets into the situation and he
keeps asking the question, says "What's the right thing to do
here? What's the right step for me to make here?" And
sometimes he becomes very confused. Sometimes other people
have to come in and tell him what's right, and even if he
gets angry about it, he thinks about it enough until he makes
the right decisions.
Did you have a particular audience or reader in mind for
this book as opposed to, say, the Easy Rawlins novels or even
RL's Dream?
WM: There are a lot of people whom I'm targeting. I'm
interested in the general public reading the books and
understanding the books in relation to their society—black
people recognizing language and current history in the work,
white readers recognizing themselves in the decisions made by
these people in a place that they may not have been in. I'm
also very interested, of course, in the art of writing and
the form of language and how sentences work. But for this book
specifically, I was thinking that young people could read
this fiction in some kind of school or workshop setting. The
stories are pretty short, 10 pages, 15 pages—and each
covers a whole moral groundwork. So I was thinking that
young people who live in the inner city, white or black,
could read these stories and then discuss them and then in
this way actually see some kind of importance in literature.
Because I try to structure the stories to be very realistic,
to really talk about the type of situations people find
themselves in, not the ones that one would hope they're in,
but the ones that they are in. And the decisions you have to
make would become very important. There's a crack addict in
the neighborhood murdering people. Well, this is a real issue.
So, how to deal with it? Who knows, but Socrates deals with
it, and maybe somebody else would deal with it another way.
But at least the question would be brought up, and a
discussion would be possible. So I was hoping, I am hoping,
that young people approach these stories in this spirit.
In fact, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned does
deal with what you might call hot-button issues in the black
community-black-on-black crime, gangbanging, boys growing up
without fathers, relations between black men and black women,
and, as you just mentioned, drug dealing in the community. Do
you expect any controversy in some of the ways you've framed
these issues?
WM: I never expect controversy. And so far I haven't
had any. Maybe there will be some—it's hard to say. There
are some decisions Socrates makes that are questionable and
that you may not want your kids to make and that you yourself
may not want to be held responsible for making. But even at
that, I think, that the job of fiction is not to grab you by
the shoulders and say: "You've got to do this." I think most
people realize that when they read my stories they can say:
"This is a story . . . it's interesting and it makes me think
about it, and I can either accept or reject it." So no, I
don't expect controversy, but if I do get it, I don't care.
I'm not concerned with it.
Does Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned signal a
new direction or turn in your writing away from the crime
thriller, or will you continue to work both sides of the
street or even find another?
WM: I'm interested in crime writing, I like it very
much. And I'm interested in the characters in crime writing.
Easy Rawlins and Mouse, these are characters I love writing
about and will keep writing about. I wish I had more time to
write more than I do—I look at Simenon and Rex Stout, and
I feel jealous that they were able to get out all those
books. But at the same time I'm really interested in the
possibility today of a writer like me being able to do
anything, being able to go anywhere inside the writing and to
think up anything inside the writing; not just being someone
who is a mystery writer. I want to write literary fiction,
experimental fiction, science fiction—all of that. I want to
be able to expand the horizons of every writer like myself,
and a lot of that means black writers, but not just black
writers, everybody. Let's open the doors, let's be able to
think in a broader way about fiction and who writes fiction.
Writing is a business and I treat it like a business, but in
another sense it's also the way the you express your culture,
through your life. And that is so important because you have
to go wherever your heart leads you.
Discussion Questions
1. How did you feel about Darryl's two crimes in
"Crimson Shadow" (killing the rooster and killing the boy)?
Did Socrates' responses seem right to you? What do you think
Darryl learns from their first encounter? Is it what Socrates
meant for him to learn?
2. In Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, many
questions are raised—and some are answered—over
meals. (Think of Darryl and Socrates eating the rooster,
Socrates deciding to pay for all four meals at Iula's, the
Minettes having Socrates over to eat, and Socrates having the
Shakurs over to give them the table he's rebuilt.) What
effect does eating a meal together have on these characters
and on what they say to eachother?
3. What is Socrates' relationship to women? How does he
feel about Delia in "The Wanderer," Corina in "Man Gone,"
Iula in "The Thief," or Theresa in "Letter to Theresa"? Why do
you think he's still alone? How does Socrates cope with
loneliness?
4. Money can confer both pride and shame. What does
money do for Socrates in "The Thief"? What about in "The Fire
Bug"? What about the money he earns from his supermarket
job?
5. In "The Wanderer," Mosley writes that "if anyone
tried to put [Socrates] in a cell again he would try his best
to kill them." Socrates' namesake, the Greek philosopher,
chose to remain in jail even though he knew it meant he would
be executed. What might Mosley be saying by giving his
Socrates such a different outlook? How does Socrates think
about jail in "Black Dog" when he almost has to go back?
6. What does freedom mean to Socrates? How is his
understanding different from that of people around him? In
"The Wanderer," why does he go to the beach?
7. What is Socrates' philosophy about how people should
live and how they should treat each other? Is he able to live
up to his own ideals?
8. In "The Lesson" and "Midnight Meeting," how does
Socrates teach? Do his lessons make sense to his listeners?
Do you think Socrates' philosophy fits the world he and his
friends live in?
9. In "History," what does the Capricorn bookstore mean
to Socrates? What does Socrates want to know? What can he
learn from the people who come together at the Capricorn?
10. What does Socrates think about the riots in Watts?
About his neighborhood in general? Why does he drive Petis out
of Petis's house in "Midnight Meeting"? Why does he turn in
the arsonist in "Fire Bug"? Do these seem like the right
choices to you? What about the lesson he gives Darryl in
"Marvane Street"?
11. Socrates has a wide range of friends, from Darryl,
to the high school quarterback at the supermarket, to Iula,
Right, even Bruno, the black dog. What do you think
friendship means to Socrates? Does he feel he has to prove
himself in his friendships because of his past?
12. In almost every story in Always Outnumbered,
Always Outgunned there is a violent encounter. Sometimes
it seems as if Socrates couldn't get through the day without
his "rock-breaking" hands. Is violence part of Socrates'
philosophy? Is it an unpleasant necessity? Is it the result
of the force of outside circumstances?
13. In this book there is death by violence and death
by old age. How does Socrates respond differently to the two
kinds? What does he do for Roland in "History"? What about
for Right in "Last Rites"?
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