Customer Reviews

Gone Fishin'

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Great detective story writers can rise to being solid novelists. Ross MacDonald was clearly in this category. With Gone Fishin', Walter Mosley has attained that distinction in a new way -- he has gone into a new fictional genre.

Although this novel has the usual crime overlay, it is really a novel about coming of age in the South as a black person before the days of integration. With few books available on this subject, I suspect that Mosley may have set the standard for other authors to meet.

For me, a lot of the charm of the Easy Rawlins stories is their historical setting in the more prejudiced days of the past. How does an intelligent, honorable black person deal with this? The stories are interesting for both what they say about society and for the great plots and character development.

This book, a prequel to the others in the series, does the same, but in a different setting -- far a way from Southern California.

I found it to be an excellent gothic novel, and encourage you to read it as such. If you open this book expecting another Easy Rawlins detective story, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, if you leave yourself open to what you find here, you will probably be rewarded. Moseley's fans need to live up to his talent, and follow him where his skills take him.

If you have not read the Walter Mosley books before, I suggest you start with this one. You'll make more sense out of the rest of the series. You'll also be less likely to be disturbed by the shift in genre. Anyone who enjoys this book will find the detective novels to be an easy follow on.

Having chronicled Easy's adventures from the '40s to the '60s, Mosley jumps back in time to when easy and Mouse were 19 year olds on the threshhold of manhood. Mouse is about to marry Etta Mae & wants to bring a dowry to the marriage. He decides to go ask his stepfather for some money & things don't work out real well.

This series has been consistently excellent & it's fun to see the characters as young men.

GRADE: B

If you've read the Easy Rawlins series, this prequel novella may come as a bit of a surprise. Set in 1939, when Easy is a naive and somewhat innocent 19, it's the story of him and Mouse taking a little road trip from Houston to the bayou country of Pariah, Texas. Mouse is planning to visit his fearsome stepfather to try and get some money out of him to finance his wedding to Etta-Mae. Easy is enlisted as driver on this enterprise, and the tone turns dark right away, when they pick up a hitchhiking young couple. The man is on the run for having possibly beaten another man to death in a bar fight, and his girl is a sexy little flirt who seems to enjoy having men argue over her. Mouse convinces them to let him help, and you know the only thing that will come of it is sex and violence. Mouse leads them all deep into the back country to stay with a strange old witch-like woman, who mixes them potions and weaves a different kind of magic on Easy. Instead of the straightforward realistic crime story readers of the series might expect, this is an atmospheric and sometimes surreal gothic tale. Even in such a brief story, Mosley manages to cram in a lot of characters with their own stories, but it all boils down to Mouse's quest for a portion of his mother's dowry. Of course, everything climaxes in violence, and this so unsettles Easy that he is spurred to leave Houston and join the Army. It's not so much a coming of age story as a loss of innocence one.

If you're looking for a true summer adventure--and you happen to be a fan of Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins series--don't miss this one. "Gone Fishin'" is a prequel to the other novels--it begins in Houston in the late 1930's where Easy and his murderous pal Mouse are two young black men looking for fortune in a white man's world. That leads them on trip into the dark recesses of the East Texas Piney Woods, where the city boys discover there's plenty of sex, black magic and killing out under the trees. Mosley wonderfully captures the dialect of that region from that era--to me, it had a familiar ring. To others, it may require a bit of concentration, but it's worth the effort. With "Gone Fishin'", Mosley has created a grownup "Huck Finn" style adventure that reads like a movie. If you're like me, after Denzel Washington's portrayal of Easy in "Devil In A Blue Dress", you see Denzel in your head whenever you're reading about Easy Rawlins. Imagine him as a youngster--not yet the cool sleuth he'll become later in LA--and you've got the character Mosley creates for "Gone Fishin'". The only bad thing I can say about this book is that I was finished with it before I wanted to be.

I read some of Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" mysteries a few years ago. I recently decided to begin reading them again, starting with the prequel story "Gone Fishin'".

This was actually the first novel Mosley wrote about Ezekiel "Easy" Rawlins and his psychotic friend Raymond "Mouse" Alexander. However, for whatever reasons, it never found a publisher. However, "Devil in a Blue Dress" the second novel, was published. I imagine that at least one reason "Devil" published is its more commercial status. It's a mystery, set in California in 1948. In other words, it's a straightforward book to categorize, and thus, far more marketable.

"Gone Fishin'" is not a mystery, nor is it a real crime novel (although there is a fair amount of crime and mystery in the proceedings). It is instead, a wonderfully grim coming of age story about two friends, both black, living in Texas before WW II. Mouse is getting married, but has no money to finance a proper wedding. Easy, Mouse's closest friend, and our "hero", agrees to drive Mouse to his hometown of Pariah, TX, with a vague plan to get the necessary funds from Mouse's hated stepfather. Readers of other books in the "Easy Rawlins" series will know how that turns out. But, as is the case with prequels, it's not the ending that really matters, it's the story that leads to that ending.

The most significant aspect of "Gone Fishin" is that it underlines the basic inconsequence of dividing fiction into genres and sub-genres. Mosley tackles many of the same issues here that he tackles in his mysteries. Easy is a man with feet of clay. He's mostly likeable, but like all really great protagonists, he has numerous off-putting flaws. I find myself alternating between rooting for him when he acts heroically and slapping myself in the head when he acts stupidly. But he frequently grapples with matters of good and evil, the frailty of human nature, the cruelty that inhabits the world side by side with the kindness. In other words, Mosley's work is very "literary" or "serious"-except that there's a dead body, and Easy has to find whodunit, so they are merely "mystery" or "crime fiction" and so dismissed far too readily. And it most certainly should not be that way.

"Gone Fishin" is Mosley at his best. Easy's moral ambiguity begins in this novel. Easy is perpetually trying to do the right thing, but finds himself helpless to thwart Mouse's machinations as he pursues money he believes that his stepfather owes him. Easy also finds himself entangled in a peculiar relationship with a local "witch" Momma Jo, who lives in the swamp. Mosley introduces other bizarre characters into this town of Pariah, and further creates an unhealthy atmosphere where the worst case scenario is inevitable. While Easy offers some hope in the last pages for his future, readers who have read any of the other books will almost certainly feel how hollow that hope is. More than anything, we see how Easy grows into the cynical man of the mystery novels, as, in his own words, he lost his "soul" far too early. Arguably, the mysteries represent his attempts to regain it.

For people who have read Mosley, "Gone Fishin" will be a mixed blessing. It's a great book, and is certainly a worthy part of the series. But it may seem oddly out of place, or perhaps redundant, as the outcome has been discussed in the rest of the series. On the other hand, the reader will finally watch Easy grow into the man they are familiar with. For new readers, this is an excellent place to start, although those expecting a good mystery will be disappointed (implicitly, those who read this "literary" novel and proceed to the mere "mysteries" may also be disappointed). But, those who are willing to set aside their expectations will be richly rewarded by this terrific novel.

This was the first Mosely I've read. I know of his genre/style, and have seen the film of Devil in a Blue Dress. This though seemed a departure, at least from my expectations.

The opening short story Smoke is more L.A. sleuth/heavy Easy as he searches out a school bomber. Smoke seems to be more like the Mosely I'd heard of than the main piece, Gone Fishin'. Smoke is a serial piece, continued into Six Easy Pieces. It ended with my curiosity peaked....

Gone Fishin' is a character study of both Easy and Mouse, as they drive into Southeast Texas to seek money for Mouse's upcoming wedding to EttaMae. This story is incredibly written. The dialect/colloquealism'd language gives much to the charaters and the setting. As well, Mosely paints Mouse as the "funny-man" to Easy's "straight-man," in that Mouse's actions lead Easy to response, and truly progress the action. But Easy, being the conscience of the piece is fascinated by Mouse, haunted by dreams and visions and leads us through an eye opening experience in through late 30's south Texas. Throughout the story Easy is in one form of disorientation after another, overcome by the country people he encounters, realizing along the way that he is at a pivitol time in his life. I suppose that Gone Fishin' too is a serial piece, a prequel though to Easy and Mouse's later adventures.

I left Gone Fishin' liking Easy, sympathizing with his way in the world, and curious to read about his war experience, how he gets to California, as well as what becomes of Mouse and EttaMae.

If you love Easy Rawlins, you'll want to read this 'prequel' of the series. In this one he and Mouse, best buddies since forever, are barely twenty. Lots of action, lots of local color (Houston and rural east Texas).

Though it was originally meant to be the first book in the
Easy Rawlins series, _Gone Fishin'_ is only now seeing the light of day. Fans of Walter Mosley's series will want to read this book, as it provides important background information on his characters Easy and Mouse. Not a mystery per se, this book gives us a convincing and moving coming of age story that explains a lot about the adult Easy and his friend Mouse, filling in important details that are only hinted at in the rest of the series

God bless Walter Mosley! Mosley has provided the inner-city middle schoolers that I have read to for years characters that they can identify with, and Mosley's writing skill and character development are something to behold. This is one of the shortest of Mosley's Easy Rawlins mysteries, but it is sure to attract students to the series. A wonderful author with a diverse pool of stories. To find this book and other cool short book club recommendations, go to www.lazyreaders.com.

i am an avid reader of walter mosley. i especially like his easy rawlings books, how they and easy grow and change with the times. this book takes us back to their teens, sharing secrets, telling of places and people that i found very intresting. it also shares some of the things that have made them close and shows what has cemented their relationship. again, walter mosley kept my attention from the first page to the last. i am a woman and i have gotton several of my male friends to read mr mosleys books. even men that usually do not enjoy novels. i am always eagerly awaiting his next book. one day i hope to meet the man.