Hard-Boiled Black Easy: Genre Conventions in "A Red Death"

Abstract

Few mystery aficionados would quarrel with Stephen F. Soitos's ranking of Walter Mosley as that genre's preeminent African American writer (Black Detective 1003). Mosley's reputation derives mainly from five L. A. novels that appeared between 1990 and 1996. (1) These popular works, all featuring colors their titles, arguably established Easy Rawlins, an unlicensed Watts troubleshooter, as most fascinating detective to debut nineties and made President Bill Clinton Mosley's number one fan. Emphatically Mosley has acknowledged effort to construct hero with biracial appeal, one who resembles traditional white detectives to live world where there is no law ... trying to impose some of world that has no of justice (Coale 203). Furthermore, Mosley freely acknowledges attempt to use not only Rawlins but larger black to give racial-political bent to mysteries (203). Thus, Mosley asserts, he uses a wide range of black characters ... to reflect ... black life as if it were human life America, [to take] point of view that black people are insiders rather than standing on outside looking in (McCullough 67). By situating hero labyrinthine and loyalty bound black community (Coale 179), Mosley follows earlier black mystery writers. Moreover, according to Stephen Soitos, he uses standard detective conventions to critique mainstream attitudes towards race, class, and blacks (Blues 52). In Rawlins series particular, Mosley revives an African American literary strategy of adapting popular cultural forms to critique racial hypocrisy. Conspicuous artistic development and typical of retrospective approach, Mosley's second Rawlins novel, A Red Death (1991), views Red witch hunt of early 1950s from perspective of black man who is street-wise survivor, one-third unwitting private investigator, and one-third Robin Hood (Mitgang C16). (2) In A Red Death Mosley nuances conventions of hard-boiled private eye genre to milieu of an urban black protagonist and adheres to genre's tradition of inner-directed honor-bound heroism. Of conventions Mosley tailored to Easy Rawlins, perhaps none is more prevalent genre than hero's arsenal of ruses, reflection of self-reliant ingenuity of lone agents of natural cities. John Cawelti and George Grella, whose commentaries constitute virtual poetics of genre, provide background for other conventions tapped by Mosley A Red Death. For example, hero's willingness to break laws for just cause manifests what Cawelti identifies as detective/hero's defining his own concept of morality and justice, frequently conflict with social authority of (143). Another genre staple, hero's rapport with oppressed or otherwise marginalized figures, grows out of replacing the subtleties of deductive method with sure knowledge of world and keen moral sense (Grella 414). Also, resourcefulness holding authorities at bay stems from hero's conventional self-control and physical toughness: Unlike hero of classic whodunit, he usually has to withstand intimidation (Cawelti 142). Not infrequently physical sturdiness is tested, sometimes by pre-Miranda police officers, who are, as Grella notes, incompetent, brutal, or corrupt (414). And almost invariably he demonstrates capacity for administering poetic justice, an aspect of meting out what Cawelti calls the just punishment that law is too mechanical, unwieldy, or to achieve (143). To appreciate how rapidly Mosley mastered--and surpassed--his chosen genre, we have only to compare ensemble use of foregoing conventions A Red Death to their respective individual deployment later novels by genre maestros John D. MacDonald, Robert B. Parker, Raymond Chandler, and Dashiell Hammett. …