In this cycle of 14 bittersweet stories Walter Mosley breaks out of the genre--if not the setting--of his bestselling Easy Rawlins detective novels. Only eight years after serving out a prison sentence for murder Socrates Fortlow lives in a tiny two-room Watts apartment where he cooks on a hot plate scavenges for bottles drinks and wrestles with his demons. Struggling to control a seemingly boundless rage--as well as the power of his massive "rock-breaking" hands--Socrates must find a way to live an honourable life as a black man on the margins of a white world a task which takes every ounce of self-control he has. Easy Rawlins fans might initially find themselves disappointed by the absence of a mystery to unravel. But it's a gripping inner drama that unfolds over the pages of these stories as Socrates comes to grips with the chaos poverty and violence around him. He tries to get and keep a job delivering groceries; takes in a young street kid named Darryl who has his own murder to hide; and helps drive out the neighbourhood crack dealer. Throughout Mosley captures the rhythms of Watts life in prose both lyrical and hard-edged resulting in a haunting look at a life bounded by lust violence fear and a ruthlessly unsentimental moral vision.
