Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned - Hardcover

Mosley, Walter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393045390 ISBN 13: 9780393045390

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co., 1997

Synopsis

Three decades ago, the young Socrates had, in a burst of drunken rage, murdered a man and a woman with his huge "rock-breaking hands." Twenty-seven years of hard time in an Indiana prison followed. Now Socrates lives in a cramped two-room apartment in an abandoned building in Watts, scavenging bottles and delivering groceries for a supermarket. In each of the linked stories that comprise this richly brooding work, Socrates, like his namesake, explores philosophical questions of morality in a world beset with crime, poverty, and racism. He is an unforgettable presence and his perceptions cast a glow of somber lyricism upon an often harsh world.

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 honourable 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 neighbourhood crack dealer. Throughout, Mosley captures the rhythms of Watts life in prose both lyrical and hard-edged, resulting in a haunting look at a life bounded by lust, violence, fear and a ruthlessly unsentimental moral vision.

Review

"Playboy"

Tough but touching stories.

"Booklist"

Powerful...hard-hitting, unrelenting, poignant short fiction.

"Denver Post"

A wonderful book...[with] characters who seem as real as the reader.

"Elle"

Mournful, insightful, and mystical. It is also Mosley's best work of fiction.

Amazon.com

Gritty and lyrical, the interlinked stories are stamped with Mosley's unique brand of street-smart comedy.

"Sonoma County Independent"

An insistently probing, philosophical gem...set in a world where standard notions of right and wrong have been blown to hell.

"The Los Angeles Times Book Review"

"Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned" is the work of a writer unafraid of pushing forward his own notions of responsibility and entitlement.

Sven Birkerts

The New York Times Book Review

Mosley's style suits his subject perfectly. The prose is sand-papery, the sentence rhythms often rough and jabbing. But then -- sudden surprise -- we come upon moments of undefended lyricism.

"San Francisco Chronicle"

Mosley has constructed a perfect Socrates for millennium's end -- a principled man who finds that the highest meaning of life can be attained through self-knowledge, and who convinces others of the power and value of looking within.

"Publishers Weekly"

Unveiling a new, bigger-than-life urban hero...Mosley...confer[s] on the mean streets of contemporary L.A. what filmmaker John Ford helped create for the American West: a gun-slinging mythology of street justice and a gritty, elegiac code of honor...A maverick protagonist.

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Co.
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0393045390
• ISBN 13: 9780393045390
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224