Blonde Faith and How Bizarre...

I actually kind of like this song. But I don't get how this guy got his job. He's not singing. He's not rapping. He's not really doing anything. It's a mystery. How bizarre.

I finished Walter Mosley's tenth Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins mystery this week. Blonde Faith is another fine literary thriller. I love Mosley's ability to convey emotion. Rawlins is truly a round character, a complex individual working through the deep wound of losing the love of his life to another man (Where I came from — Fifth Ward, Houston, Texas — another man sleeping with your woman was more than reason enough for justifiable double homicide. Every time I thought of her in his arms my vision sputtered and I had to close my eyes...) and trying to find his place in a racist, early '60s Los Angeles. Mosley is a wordsmith--one of this country's finest. His ability to pace the chapters (short--five to ten pages max) and touch on characterization and setting in spare, succinct declarative sentences is admirable. The only qualm I have with the writing is a very small one, and likely a bit misplaced.

Mosley's characters all have crazy names. Easter Dawn. Christmas Black. Chevette. Tourmaline. Pericles. I understand that these characters populate a colorful L.A. in a time when nicknames are prevalent. But it gets a bit tiresome as the novel unfolds.

That said, it's a fast, interesting read and if it is the end of Easy, well...I think the final page was beautifully, tragically written. I can live with it if it's the end.

I hope it's not, though.

I've been hanging with Easy for all of the second half of my life, and I can't imagine a literary world where I can't depend on an honest man like him to try to set things square.

Go Ducks.