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48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The master pens another..., October 7, 2010
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
`Last Days' is the story of a ninety-one year old Black man named Ptolemy. He has dementia... of sorts. I'm sure most doctors would diagnose him as that, but I'm not as convinced. Seems to me this man had more life in his "last days" than most people do their seventy-one point seven years on this planet. Walter Mosley creates a beautiful story with some... provoking people. Ptolemy is a walking, dying encyclopedia of his Black experience. And many others as well. The man is dying, he knows he's dying, and he's OK with him dying. What hurts him most is that his mind is going away. His remaining family is like the rest of ours; some good, some bad, looking for a quick come up.
What happens, however, is what makes Walter Mosley one of the masters of this beloved craft. A mahogany colored beauty (Robyn) finds her way into the life of Ptolemy and she is one of the few bright lights to walk hand and hand with him in the end. While Robyn is his chaperone in "real life", the person that guides him is someone we never really meet. Leave it to Mr. Mosley to create a (ghost) character that is more powerful than the (live) characters. Coydog McCann is the character of whom I speak. He's a teacher, he's a guide, he's a mentor, and he's a friend. Together, Ptolemy and Coydog have a deep, deep friendship that borders on the strongest type of brotherly love. This bond grows stronger over the years and Coy needs Ptolemy to help him complete a mission of sorts when he dies, and Ptolemy needs Robyn to do the same.
To help with this Ptolemy chooses to be a guinea pig for an experimental drug that will help him be lucid his final days. In spite of his dementia, this man is far from crazy and the drug doesn't GIVE him clarity... it sharpens it. The name he gives to the doctor is classic. As with all of Mosley's novels the surrounding cast is splendid. Every single one. Even Alfred. This man can not miss. Thank you Walter for yet another.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautifully Written, October 30, 2010
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I'll warn you now that if you're looking for a plot summary, that's not this review.
To me, a good book is one you finish and you wake up thinking about the story the next day. This book touched me like that. I am a Walter Mosley fan from Easy Rollins days, but I have to say this may be the best I've read.
First, this book takes some sacrifice. I didn't think it was a leisurely read. It is an engrossing story; I wanted to clear the decks so that I could focus on the book and understand Ptolemy Grey. He made me sad. I found his struggle with dementia heartbreaking. I know someone who is in a very similar state. Ptolemy helped me see things from the other side and I thank him for increasing my compassion. This is the blessing in Mosley's storytelling -- his ability to build compassion, sympathy and even contempt for his characters by forcing you to understand their inner motivations.
One of the themes I love in the book is the notion of karma and simple justice. You will get what's coming to you whether it's good or bad. Even if you think you are getting away with something -- like taking advantage of an old man when no one knows but you and him, it will come out eventually. Mosley unfolds the story and reveals the characters in such a way that in the end, you may find it challenging to disagree with the outcome.
Mosley has done a great job in capturing relationships and the underlying feelings that drive them. Special kudos for showing how 'play' uncles and cousins are an integral part of black families. This book is also an excellent example how many black women often open their homes and hearts to children that are not theirs.
The only thing about the book that felt out of place was the Shirley Wring character. I felt she was unnecessary and didn't contribute greatly to the story. After willing suspension of disbelief with regard to Coy Dog's legacy, Shirley and her legacy were overkill for me. Her story was plausible; it was a just a bit too much and too coincidental. However, her addition did underscore the metaphor of elders as treasures. Shame on us as a society for discarding the generations that have gone before us.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Challenging and Daring Exploration of Age and Race, October 15, 2010
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It's hard to describe how much I admire Walter Mosley's writing. His ability to create realistic dialog, characters and actions made his Easy Rawlins detective novels a hit, but even better, Mosley never let himself fall into a rut. He kept writing detective novels, but also branched out into genres including science fiction (like Futureland and Blue Light), modern fiction, and stuff that's hard to categorize (for example, The Man in My Basement and Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel). Each time, Mosley's gift for character and dialog lifts the novel to a place you never expected it to be.
"The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey" is a typically ambitious and fearless Mosley effort, and it mostly succeeds. The title character, Ptolemy Grey, is a 91 year old retiree, sinking into dementia. Largely trapped, both physically in his apartment and mentally in his uncontrollable memories, Grey has a series of encounters that motivate him to change his life, confront a variety of deep-set problems, and attack some long-unfinished business.
Ultimately, this novel becomes a powerful mediation on the end of a person's life. Ptolomy confronts what he has accomplished and what he has left undone, balances his love for people long dead with his obligations and connections to the generations left to come, and does his best to put his life and his own memories in order. Mosley does a great job with his characters, including Grey himself, Grey's new friend Robyn, and some characters who we only see through Grey's or other's memories, like his mentor, his childhood friend, and his grand-nephew Reggie. All of these characters were powerfully real, and fascinating.
As usual, Mosley doesn't shy away from race, and uses it to ground his characters. Born in 1929, Ptolemy lived through segregation and Jim Crow, served in World War II, and has a complicated view of race that ultimately shapes how he reacts to his friends and relatives' situation in modern Black America.
Mosley's most ambitious technique is his use of Ptolomy's sometime dementia, sometime lucidity, to write a novel that braids Ptolomy's past and present. This is often fascinating and effective, but occasionally makes for hard reading, particularly in the half of the book or more where Ptolomy is frequently floating helplessly on a sea of his memories rather than riding them. Still, this is a thoughtful, often captivating, always emotionally powerful book.
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