Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned - Softcover

Mosley, Walter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852427027 ISBN 13: 9781852427023

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 1998

Synopsis

Socrates Fortlow has spent 27 years in prison and can kill a man with his bare hands. But now he's out and determined to use his strength for good, to help the downtrodden and oppressed of the Los Angeles ghetto. Like his Greek namesake, Socrates Fortlow asks questions in an attempt to understand his world. His attempt to find morality in poverty and deprivation makes Socrates a modern-day hero.

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

An extraordinary portrait of a sub-society made up of no money, petty crime, basic sex and ambivalent morality (The Times)

I doubt you'll read another book this year that will imprint itself on your memory like this one (Independent)

With Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, Mosley has created one of the outstanding American novels of the decade (The Word)

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1852427027
• ISBN 13: 9781852427023
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208