Don’t take it ‘Easy’

The City of Angels’ unholy underbelly has provided Walter Mosley with twisting plots and a wealth of fascinating and often shadowy characters.
  But the declarative sentence that started the best-selling author on his literary career had nothing to do with his hometown.
“A lot of people will tell you they knew they wanted to be a writer from the time they were 10 or 12 years old,” Mosley said during a recent telephone interview from Los Angeles. “For me, I was in my 30s before it ever became clear that that was something I would want to do.
“How I started was literally one day I wrote down a sentence and said, ‘Wow, this could be a novel.’ The sentence was, ‘On hot sticky days in southern Louisiana the fire ants swarm.’
“From that sentence I just started writing.”
Mosley is one of the special guests attending the 14th annual Virginia Festival of the Book, which continues through Sunday. He will be speaking about his life as a writer at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount Theater.
Proceeds from the ticketed event will benefit the festival and programs offered by the Virginia Center of the Book. “Walter Mosley: A Literary Life” is being sponsored by the Paramount Theater, Covington International Travel, WMRA Public Radio and Merrill Lynch.
Patron-level tickets for $125 include a reception with Mosley before the event, and a copy of his most recent mystery, “Blonde Faith.” Other tickets are $65, $52 and $38.
“We’ve been trying to get Walter Mosley for years,” said Nancy
Damon, program director of the festival. “So we’re obviously very happy that this year it all worked out, and he’s able to attend.
“I’ve read eight or nine of his mysteries, and I think he’s one of the most interesting writers writing today. His writing is edgy and, because he’s a great storyteller, you want to keep reading.
“I’ve had the opportunity to meet him in the past and listen to him speak. He’s an extremely congenial person who loves to meet his public and is also an outstanding speaker.”
Mosley, the author of nearly 30 books, is perhaps best known for his mystery series featuring Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins. The protagonist isn’t a private detective, per se, but is the kind of person people call on when they need help.
Mosley, the son of a white Jewish mother and black Christian father, was born in Los Angeles in 1952. When he introduced readers to Rawlins in 1990 via “Devil in a Blue Dress,” he placed his hero in the Los Angeles of the late 1940s.
Rawlins, a World War II veteran, just wants to work toward a better life. But he quickly discovers that just beneath the glitz and star-studded glow of the big city, there’s another world as dark and blood-dripping raw as a fresh cut of beef.
Mosley clearly remembers the first time he held a copy of the book that changed his life. It was a moment of wide-eyed wonder and knee-trembling terror.
“I got the book and had it in my hands,” Mosley said. “I was scheduled to do a reading somewhere.
“I started looking at it, and I was so excited that I couldn’t read. I was looking at it and trying to read the sentences, but I couldn’t. I said to myself, ‘My God, this book doesn’t make any sense.
“ ‘I wrote this terrible book, and somehow nobody noticed that it doesn’t make any sense. After a while, I realized that wasn’t the case.”
The novel became a hit and was adapted for the screen. In 1995 Denzel Washington and Jennifer Beals starred in the film version of “Devil in a Blue Dress.”
As the mystery series progressed so did Rawlins. After 11 novels starring his knuckle-scarred character, Mosley said they have become old friends.
“Easy has gotten older, and he has more responsibilities,” Mosley said. “He’s living in a fast-changing world in the middle of the 20th century.
“For Easy the world is even faster, because he’s this black man dealing with concepts such as civil rights. And maybe he’s a little more confused, because who he was is not really what the world is anymore.”
Mosley also is the author of the Fearless Jones mystery series. In addition to Easy and Fearless, Mosley just started work on a new mystery series featuring a private detective in contemporary New York.
“The best thing about writing for me, so far, has been the writing itself,” Mosley said. “The writing is where all the benefits come from.
“If you get published, that’s great. If people like your book, that’s great. If people don’t like your book, well, that’s not so great, but it’s OK. There are a lot of external things I could worry about, but in the end they’re less important to me.
“What’s terribly important is the fact that I’m going to be writing every day. I just love that. I’ve been writing a chapter a day on my new mystery series, which has been a lot of fun. This is a new character, so I’m discovering him in many ways, and that’s so exciting.”
Mosley varies his writing by venturing into other arenas such as nonfiction and science fiction. He recently published a how-to book, “This Year You Write Your Novel.”
The prolific author also conceived the idea for the nonfiction book “Black Genius: African-American Solutions to African-American Problems.” According to Mosley the intent was to present the stories of accomplished black men and women who had “made it in spite of the system.”
Mosley edited and contributed to the book, which features Spike Lee, Angela Davis, Joycelyn Elders and Melvin Van Peebles.
Because Mosley writes everything from sci-fi to how-to books, his writing techniques differ according to the subject being addressed.
“I’ve found when I’m writing a mystery it helps to outline, because that way I don’t get completely lost,” said Mosley, who worked as a computer programmer before switching to full-time writer.
“When I’m writing a literary novel, getting lost is actually preferable. The thing that is most important to me is consistency.
“Consistency is about, and only about, writing every day. As long as I’m writing every day I know I’m getting somewhere. That’s the thing that’s most important.”
Whether Mosley is writing about fire ants in Cajun country or a hardboiled former GI with a penchant for being drawn into mysteries, he relishes his time at the writing desk.
“I’m extraordinarily fortunate that my life as a writer started so late,” Mosley said. “I think that has enabled me to feel that I’m in service to my writing, and not that my writing is in service to me.
“Because I didn’t expect writing to be what I made a living from, I simply enjoyed the process and still do. I write every day. I wake early in the morning and write for three hours, sometimes only two, and that’s it.
“Then my day is complete, because I’ve addressed the work. I try to tell people that writing is a long process. It’s not one book, it’s everything you write during a lifetime.”

The best-selling author will present “Walter Mosley: A Literary Life” at 4 p.m. Sunday at the Paramount Theater on Charlottesville’s Downtown Mall. Patron tickets for $125 includes a reception with Mosley before the event and a copy of his book “Blonde Faith.” Other tickets are $65, $52 and $38. Proceeds will benefit the Virginia Foundation Center for the Book. Tickets can be purchased at the theater or by calling 434 979-1333 or online at http://www.theparamount.net.