Life Out of Context [Paperback]

Walter Mosley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 21, 2005

Life Out of Context begins as a powerful, brooding and humorously honest examination of Mosley's own sense of cultural dislocation as an African American writer. But due to a series of serendipitous events — the screening of a documentary about Africa, an encounter with Harry Belafonte and Hugh Masakela — Mosley, rather like the protagonist in one of his mystery novels, has a series of epiphanies on the role of a black intellectual in America. He asks: What can we do to fight injustice, poverty, exploitation, and racism? What is globalization doing to us? Through these late night meditations, Mosley attempts to transcend his earlier feelings of living a "life out of context" and seeks instead to find a political context. He ends with a call to arms, proposing that African Americans have to break their historic ties with the Democrat Party, and form a party of their own

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The isolation and ineffectuality of the American left is lamented in this brooding, somewhat unfocused cri de coeur. Writing primarily for an African-American audience, novelist Mosley (the Easy Rawlins mystery series) argues that today's political myopia and paralysis are caused by a lack of "context." Americans, he contends, dwell on their own problems while ignoring the global context of oppression and exploitation—in Iraq, Africa and elsewhere—in which they are complicit. They are in turn shut out of decision-making forums, whose agenda is set mainly by the narrow interests of the wealthy and privileged. The efforts of progressive groups, meanwhile, lack any unified context and rallying point, and are therefore fragmented and dispersed among a myriad of causes. These musings prompt a number of suggestions, some of which—like giant downtown video screens to project images of humanitarian crises abroad—the author almost immediately retracts. Mosley's most substantive proposal is to challenge the two-party duopoly with a black political party; unfortunately, however, he does not discuss ways to lower the formidable institutional barriers to third parties in the American electoral system. In the end, he falls back on platitudes about the need for citizens to get involved and speak truth to power. Fine sentiments, indeed, but they fall well short of a cogent guide to action. (Jan.)
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From Booklist

From Workin' on the Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of Slavery (2000) to his popular genre fiction, Mosley's writing has always questioned the status quo. Now, in this short, passionate essay, he confronts his deep sense of political disengagement, and he calls on African Americans to get away from victimhood and take on responsibility for people of color, not only in America but also across the world. He is inspired by personal encounters with Hugh Masekela and Harry Belafonte, but Mosley speaks to ordinary people ("We are not only performers. We are also the rank and file"). He urges everyone to sit at the table, not in the yard, and to listen to the young. Sure to spark controversy, one chapter calls for a Black Party that will focus on prison reform, suffrage for all ex-convicts, universal health care, global child labor, and more. Never hectoring or self-righteous, the naive personal style may do what Mosley wants--call some readers to action and bring them to the table. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Paperback: 103 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books (December 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560258462
• ISBN-13: 978-1560258469
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,024,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Walter Mosley is one of America's most celebrated and beloved writers. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into more than twenty languages.

Mosley is the author of the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series of mysteries, including national bestsellers Cinnamon Kiss, Little Scarlet, and Bad Boy Brawly Brown; the Fearless Jones series, including Fearless Jones, Fear Itself, and Fear of the Dark; the novels Blue Light and RL's Dream; and two collections of stories featuring Socrates Fortlow, Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned, for which he received the Anisfield-Wolf Award, and Walkin' the Dog. He lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's a Letter to U.S. Citizens We Need to Hear, February 22, 2006

By 

Libby Clark ""writer, reader" (Strangely, living in Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life Out of Context (Paperback)

Does it ramble in some places? Yes. Does it propose some things that kinda scare me? Yes. Does it come up with brilliant, new and wholly-thought-out ways to change the world? No. Now, let's ask ourselves what it was meant to do...

It was meant to walk a reader through the mental steps it takes to lift themselves out of seeing their entire lives in the context of only their own navels. It's not intended to show people exactly how to change the world. It's intended to show people how to think about themselves as agents of change...and changes that could happen TODAY. Sadly, that type of cover description doesn't sell books. So, I'm sure there will be people complaining about how it doesn't deliver on its promises. Well, welcome to the world of book-selling. Now, get over it.

Get over it and read this book. It's been a huge factor in my being able to finally see where I fit in as a citizen of this world...not just a participant in my life. Read it. Let it scare you and then pull back. Let it make you say, "DUH!" and then surprise you by the next sentence's depth and insight. If it were a man, I'd recommend you kiss him just so you can know what it's like. Yeah, it's that good. If you let it in.

18 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Authentic Black Man, March 20, 2006

By 

Half Apache - See all my reviews

This review is from: Life Out of Context (Paperback)

I have a new addiction. I am hung up on the African writer Kola Boof. I guess because I am a black woman, I relate so much more to the urgency and wisdom in Boof's political views mixed with her command of our ancestor's cultures and her defiant love for blackness itself, until I was not as impressed with Walter Mosley's new book as my husband was, but still, I thought "LIFE OUT OF CONTEXT" was very good. I don't regret buying it.

To the contrary, I think this book is much better than some other friends have said it was.

Mosely, who is biracial, speaks of a world view for colored peoples and is concerned with all races. He doesn't resonate with me as powerfully as Kola Boof does, because I still don't think we have saved black people yet let alone the whole earth, but this book shows how intelligent he is and that his heart is in the right place. I agreed totally with his idea of a Black political party. It's long overdue.

If you want to read a true masterpiece that every black human being should wrap their brains around, however, then you should read Kola Boof's autobiography "Diary of a Lost Girl". She has an essay in that book called "The Authentic Black Man" that only an African woman could have written.

My husband and I live by it!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You sure don't have to be African American to get value from this book, September 8, 2010

By 

Neal C. Reynolds (Indianapolis, Indiana) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Life Out of Context (Paperback)

I may be the only reviewer so far who isn't African-American, but this is a book that should be of interest to anyone politically minded to read. Sure, I can't quite agree with every idea presented here, but that doesn't make any difference This isn't a call to action as much as it is a sharing of one's thought processes in seeking solutions to a social problem and to injustice arising from our American political system. It is an encouragement to the reader to do his or her own musing on the issues.I quite respect Walter Mosley who is mainly thought of as a crime novelist and his novels have a lot of philosophical and political thought in them. It's good to see a non-fiction book from him which gives such a personal look at his thought processes.