Fishing for an example of a prequel that works

Monday, February 3, 1997

BOOK:

Mosley’s ‘Gone Fishin” reveals how Easy Rawlins started
sleuthingBy Brandon Wilson

Daily Bruin Staff

Prequels can be a tricky business. The biggest obstacle to a
storyteller undertaking such an enterprise is that the audience
knows exactly how the story will end, since the survival or demise
of certain characters has already been foretold (of course, you
could further the argument that this is always the case). So it is
the shrewd writer that knows the prequel’s power comes from using
that foreknowledge, and by perhaps letting characters and their
development take precedence over the machinery of plot.

"Gone Fishin’" is, among other things, a fine example of
successful prequel writing. Author Walter Mosley scored big with
the last installment in his Easy Rawlins mystery series, "A Little
Yellow Dog." Ending with a bang and a whimper, the book left Easy’s
relationship with Mouse in grave danger, which makes this
coming-of-age prequel well-timed and all the more powerful.

More bildungsroman than mystery tale, "Gone Fishin’" tells a
story alluded to since the very beginning of the series ­ the
story of how his reluctant private eye Easy Rawlins lost his last
shred of innocence by becoming the unwitting accomplice to his
buddy Mouse’s first killing.

Comparisons to genre legend Raymond Chandler abound when talk
turns to the writing of Mosley. Both have made a mark on the
mystery genre with their noble loner protagonist, both write about
the sun-drenched streets and dark underside of Los Angeles, and
both excel in writing dialogue, creating memorable characters and
pushing the oft-hackneyed hard-boiled prose style to the sublime
heights usually attained by good poetry.

Like Chandler, Mosley has a writing style you could spot
blindfolded, and in "Gone Fishin’" those skills are easily seen.
Set not in postwar Los Angeles but in prewar Texas circa 1939 (nine
years before the case of Daphne Monet would make him a gumshoe),
the story is told as usual by Rawlins, but the voice is distinctly
more Southern and less bone-weary than Easy’s middle-aged
persona.

Rawlins has yet to go to Europe to serve his country or develop
the talent for unraveling mystery that will later forever alter the
course of his life; he is, however, already bosom buddies with
Raymond Alexander, also known as Mouse. A scene-stealer both on the
page and in the series’ maiden voyage to the silver screen, Mouse
is a charismatic good-time Charlie, whose ruthless streak is
matched only by his devotion to pal Easy and best girl Etta Mae
(another familiar face from previous Easy tales).

Mouse has decided to make an honest woman out of Etta Mae and
decides to take a trip to a small town where lives his stepfather
Daddy Reese and, more importantly, Daddy Reese’s money. Mouse ropes
Easy into chauffeuring him in a "borrowed" car, and the two young
men hit the road so Mouse can take his "wedding present" from Daddy
Reese’s funds, whether the man likes it or not.

What’s chilling about Mouse is how likable and dangerous he can
be at the same time, and with this first Oedipal feat of
skullduggery, we know, even if Mouse doesn’t, that he has begun the
first of a long list of questionable killings. Few things are as
gripping as witnessing the birth of a natural-born killer.

On the other hand, Easy is the introspective one ­ the
conscience and the ego to Mouse’s raging id. They compose that
classic dichotomy of the mystery genre and most stories where
masculinity is the issue at hand: the thinker and the killer.
Martin Scorsese has used De Niro and Pesci countless times to fill
these archetypes, and Mosley has tapped grandly into this yin-yang
of maleness quite successfully.

"Gone Fishin’" also examines issues of fatherhood, and how the
legacy a man creates is passed down, for better or worse, to his
son. Daddy Reese is a fearsome presence for young Mouse, so then
his murder represents his own claim at manhood. For Easy, whose
family life and early childhood are described here for the first
time, we understand finally what the absence of his father has done
to shape him, and this bit of knowledge puts his later development
as a father of two cast-off children into a new light.

Unfortunately, Mosley’s Achilles’ heel has always been women.
The author is locked into viewing women in simplistic terms (no
woman in his stories, save Etta Mae, has shown anywhere near the
complexity his men have.) They simply seem to be the repetitious
invocation of some lost ideal he has and can’t escape from (nearly
every woman in the book is big of body and heart).

"Gone Fishin’" also falters a bit in its characterization of the
South. As in his first foray outside of the mystery genre, "R.L.’s
Dream," Mosley is all too willing to inject a bit of voodoo-hoodoo
hocus-pocus, which only exoticizes the setting instead of deepening
our understanding of it. It’s the kind of black magic bollocks that
would enrage his African-American readers if the author were a
white man.

While his depiction of women and certain realms within black
America continue to be an issue, it doesn’t diminish the fact that
Mosley is shaping up to be one of this country’s best authors.
Sure, his mystery yarns have a way of losing you (Chandler had the
same problem), but it’s not the plots that make news of a new Easy
Rawlins book so exciting. Mosley has created a wonderful cast of
characters you look forward to seeing again as if they were old
friends, and this of course is a great accomplishment for any
writer. With "Gone Fishin’," Mosley has yet again shown a
compelling new facet to one of the most distinguished and enjoyable
protagonists in both the mystery genre and in African-American
literature.