Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned - Hardcover

Mosley, Walter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393045390 ISBN 13: 9780393045390

Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company, 1997

Synopsis

After serving twenty-seven years in an Indiana prison for killing two people in a drunken rage, tough, brooding ex-convict Socrates Fortlow lives in a tiny apartment in an abandoned building in Watts, struggling to make sense of the anarchic violence in the world--and in himself. 100,000 first printing. Tour.

About this title

Review:

In this cycle of 14 bittersweet stories, Walter Mosley breaks out of the genre--if not the setting--of his bestselling Easy Rawlins detective novels. Only eight years after serving out a prison sentence for murder, Socrates Fortlow lives in a tiny, two-room Watts apartment, where he cooks on a hot plate, scavenges for bottles, drinks, and wrestles with his demons. Struggling to control a seemingly boundless rage--as well as the power of his massive "rock-breaking" hands--Socrates must find a way to live an honorable life as a black man on the margins of a white world, a task which takes every ounce of self-control he has.

Easy Rawlins fans might initially find themselves disappointed by the absence of a mystery to unravel. But it's a gripping inner drama that unfolds over the pages of these stories, as Socrates comes to grips with the chaos, poverty, and violence around him. He tries to get and keep a job delivering groceries; takes in a young street kid named Darryl, who has his own murder to hide; and helps drive out the neighborhood crack dealer. Throughout, Mosley captures the rhythms of Watts life in prose both musical and hard-edged, resulting in a haunting look at a life bounded by lust, violence, fear, and a ruthlessly unsentimental moral vision.

About the Author:

Walter Mosley is the author of six best-selling Easy Rawlins mysteries, the most recent of which are A Little Yellow Dog and Gone Fishin', and the novel RL's Dream. Sections of this book have appeared in Esquire, Buzz, GQ, and Story.His work is regularly seen on national bestseller lists and appears in the Norton Anthology of African American Literature.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton and Company
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0393045390
• ISBN 13: 9780393045390
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 208