“Alwéér Mosley?” Wel ja, ik hou niet zo van amuse-bouchekes. Als ik iets nieuws leer kennen – hetzij een band, een gerecht, een auteur – en het bevalt me, dan word ik gulzig, dan wil ik meer, dan wil ik het volledige palet geproefd hebben of op z’n minst weten waarover ik het heb als het eens ter sprake zou komen mocht ik iemand tegenkomen die er ook mee vertrouwd is. En omdat de hoofdstedelijke bibliotheek van Brussel zo’n fijne keet is die ervoor zorgt dat ik die boeken allemaal gratis kan lezen… (het downloaden van boeken zal wel nooit zo’n hit worden, zeker?). A Little Yellow Dog (1996) dus, deel vijf uit de Easy Rawlins-reeks. Deel vier, Black Betty, hadden ze niet (kan ik dus niet tegen, zo’n leemte), maar wèl in vertaling, dus die ga ik misschien nog eens meepikken.Opnieuw een sprong voorwaarts in de tijd, intussen vijftien jaar verder dan Devil In A Blue Dress. Het is november 1963 en Rawlins is het hoofd van de onderhoudsdienst van een school geworden, en leidt een braaf, CD&V-approved bestaan met z’n twee kinderen. Natuurlijk is de vrede van korte duur, want op een ochtend ligt er een lijk op het schoolterrein, en laat het niet de schoonbroer zijn van een collega met wie Rawlins net de dag ervoor van bil ging (op de schoolbanken, yup). En laat de echtgenote van die collega ook niet het loodje leggen. En die collega zelf! Rawlins, die tegen wil en dank opgescheept zit met het keffertje van betreffende collega komt terecht in een onontwarbaar web van intriges en motieven waarbij de drie eerste boeken verbleken. En de keffer heeft ook wat op z’n geweten, het loeder.Toch is A Little Yellow Dog misschien wel het beste deel van de reeks tot dan toe. Het lijkt alsof Mosley nu pas ècht z’n stem gevonden heeft en de lezer op het verkeerde been kan zetten zonder dat die zich daarover gaat opwinden (af en toe wel het geval bij eerdere delen). De intrige is op, euhm, papier, verder gezocht dan ooit (tot en met drugssmokkel vanuit Europa), maar de parade mogelijke betrokkenen wordt met zoveel verve bij het verhaal betrokken dat je enkel respect kan opbrengen voor Mosley als verhalenverteller en portrettist (is dat een woord?). Ook de innerlijke conflicten van Rawlins werden nooit eerder zo stijlvol ten tonele gevoerd: vanaf de eerste leugen die hij vertelt is de (anti-)held zich bewust van de spiraal van chaos en geweld die zal volgen, maar toch kan hij niet kiezen voor de zekerheid van het besloten gezinsleven.Mosley schrijft te subtiel, te getemperd, te “cool” om te overdonderen zoals de expressievere Himes dat deed, maar de wereld die hij oproept werd nooit eerder met meer oog voor nuance en detail beschreven, en gekoppeld aan zijn gevoel voor kleurrijke, overtuigende dialogen leidt het tot het soort misdaadroman waar elk mens die al eens het slachtoffer is van z’n driften zich in zal herkennen. Good shit, yo, en Mosley, die kruipt stilaan onder de huid. (****)
“It was a regular family scene. All we had to do was clean up a few murders and a matter of international dope smuggling, then we could move next door to Donna Reed.”Easy Rawlins is back. 1963, two years on from the disastrous end to Black Betty he is out of the doing favours for people business; living the straight life, working hard, keeping his head down and watching his two adopted children grow. But all that changes when a beautiful woman (aren't they always) pays him some attention, on her schoolroom desk, early one morning. From that moment nothing can ever return, the line has been crossed and before the hunt for a killer can be completed and his name cleared bodies will litter the less respectable areas of L.A., heroin will be imported from France, Easy will fall off of the wagon, a president will be dead, woman will throw themselves at the hero and a little yellow dog will have his vengeance.There's something about Walter Mosley's prose that keeps me coming back for more. The first Easy Rawlins mystery was a superb piece of noir fiction that introduced one of the great protagonists of the genre but the following three books never really reached those same heights and still I come back for more. They mysteries might not be at the same standard but the manner in which Mosley evokes the time and place, the complex characters that litter Easy's life and especially the complex nature of Easy himself plus the relaxed nature of the first person past tense narration are what make these books worth coming back to.A Little Yellow Dog however is the first time since Devil in a Blue Dress that I've had a great time with the plot and mystery as well as being a fly on the wall in the life of Easy Rawlins. At one point it seems to rely a little too heavily on a deus ex machina type device to stop the plot getting bogged down in its own setup but that aside it's a story of a good man doing what he needs to do to survive in a place and time when an innocent black man was guilty until proven otherwise. There's a fair amount of socio-political statement running through the story but it's done in such a subtle way that even if you're a racist, redneck, honky, cracker, peckerwood you probably won't be offended by it. Anyway, if you haven't heard, Bill Clinton loves these books.You feel like this book marks the end of an era for Rawlins, a lot is left hanging open but it's made clear that they can't return to the way they were, you're made to see that a lot of the trouble Rawlins has is of his own doing and until the man can learn to contain his anger, control his darkness, he will never find lasting happiness. I highly recommend the work of Walter Mosley, the Rawlins series is very good but if you ever stumble upon his Socrates Fortlow books that start with the highly impressive Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned do read them despite the lack of hard-boiled and noir content.
What do You think about A Little Yellow Dog (2002)?
Easy Rawlins and his friends and lovers are a wonderful cast of characters. This noir-ish tale satisfies by playing with the 'genre' offering acute social commentary and sheer poetry at times. After describing a jazz trumpeter's soaring solo, the following passage takes the reader up to the flowery heavens and deposits her right back on earth:"Lips sat down and wiped his face. The room cheered him. Cheered him for all the years he'd kept us alive in northern apartments living one on top of the other. Cheered him for remembering the pain of police sticks and low pay and no face in the mirror of the times. Cheered him for his assault on the white man's culture; his brash horn the only true heir to the European masters like Bach and Beethoven.Or maybe they were just applauding a well-made piece of music."The short story also included is fun too!
—Frank Jude
Another mystery that's great to see Mosley's observations about the times, race relations, philosophy, and the ever-evolving Easy Rawlins and his attempts to live a normal life even as he gets dragged into yet another situation almost beyond his control. His kids are growing up, he has a regular job as a facility supervisor with the school district that he finagled earlier, and he continues to read and enjoy great jazz and blues. One of his teacher's ends up leaving her dog with him as she skips town just as her husband and his twin brother are killed. Easy is only slightly involved, but ends up having to dig in deeper as he become a suspect and his new boss tries to set him up to fail. Easy's former street life both threatens his new life and gives him the experience and connections to figure things out, but at greater and greater risk. Most of this takes place in 1963, and Kennedy's assassination knocks most everybody in L.A. for a loop and fills Easy with a sense of foreboding. Even Mouse takes a turn for the better for a while at least. Oh, and the little yellow dog hates Easy but loves Feather. Guess who wins that one?
—Cam
(3.2) I've said this before if you want to read crime fiction of LA in the 40's-70's, read James Ellroy, but then read the Ez Rawlins mysteries to get a handle on the black side of town during those turbulent, lawless times. Some of the tropes of the genre are here: the femme fatales and the loose women, the cops on the take and the desperate folk living on the margins of a city; however, the gamechanger is that the detective's black and that gives his desperation, his lone gunman like mentality a sheen of isolation and drama that's lacking in other smart workings of detective fiction.
—Dev
