I’ve always admired Petry’s focus on what I like to call the hard-working middle, black people at neither extreme of human behavior who generally escape notice, toiling away at dead-end jobs as world-changing events unfold all around them. Equal parts strength and vulnerability, Easy Rawlins is a quintessential black literary hero. His exchanges between his black male characters, whether hostile or warm-hearted, are reliably revelatory while retaining the veracity of street-honed poetry.
Like the playwright August Wilson, Mosley has few peers when it comes to using language to illuminate the experience of black men in America. French devotes descriptive attention to every character who deserves it, including those whose doom seems a foregone conclusion.ĭevil in a Blue Dress, Walter Mosley. Characters like Dicky Bird, Willet, and Mack Jack strut and swagger through a rigidly segregated 1950s world, navigating darkness, bellowing trains, gossip, and swaying hips. The setting and its many residents compete for center stage, and they are distinctively and vividly drawn. French’s 1998 novel mines the alleys and streets of Pittsburgh’s Homewood community for its story of crime, passion, and missed opportunities. Below, Asim cites some of the key influences on his novel, which is set in Gateway City, a fictional Midwestern metropolis that bears more than a passing similarity to the author’s native St.
Our series of guest blog posts by writers of fiction, history, essays, and poetry continues today with a contribution by Jabari Asim, whose debut novel Only the Strong was published in May.
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