To come back to southern texas and realized he could no longer live there he and thousands and we followed him as the unofficial detective as he reveals what life was like in parts of los angeles that havent been talked about. How did you come up with the name . A voice was speaking first person and how he was trying to raise money to pay his rent and then woman he was in love with of adam made that she is in love with mouse and mouse looks at the person who is talking and thats what he came from. Why voices he supposed to represent . Its interesting because how the africanamerican voice is the choir of america. Did you set out as a vehicle for social commentary . Any good novel that talks about any character talks about how they are incurred and the society and culture and politics. Then you dont have a real character. It seems that everybody does that. Not a lot of people were doing that with black mail he rose to become a Strong Social commentary not because that was my intention but i was the only person doing it. One review is that for once a black mans feelings are honestly expressed in a detective literary form. Thats true. It is the traditional form. And not try to take away anything because then otherwise it would that meant to be a series . Not necessarily. Also gone fishing writing when they were comingofage in the swampland. That it was a wonderful book but not commercial that white men dont like black men and they dont read. They like the book but they thought they couldnt publish it. They were wrong but the fact they said it made it true because it wouldnt publish my book. We want just buy one book we will by two. So the decision of the publisher to be a series. You describe him as a gun in one pocket and a short fuse and the other. And the about offense. And then willing to explode to defend themselves. And then also to control the temperature. And then with this feeding frenzy angels are just sharks. And thats with the character also. When does devil in a blue dress take place . Los angeles 1948. Thats an amazing event for change. Maybe 100,000 people per year will move into Southern California from then until now. And anyplace else in the country and that it was a wonderful tim time. A world war ii veteran what story are you trying to tell to make him a world war ii veteran . It was an amazing change for black people in america. It was for everybody but to be from southern texas louisiana but my father story he left to go to the war about 100 people that he knew may be ten or 12 died not from violence but an accident or disease. But when he got back to texas almost everyone he knew was dead already. And he realized he was safer in the largest war then he would have been at home in his bed and thats what moved him. When easy rawlins return returns, how was he treated in texas and los angeles . Racism was institutionalized all through the south. So for one thing there was no jobs he could get so whatever his talents were he wouldnt get those jobs in tennessee or mississippi or alabama. I cant make a decent living i cant own anything taken away from me. Thats the biggest problem extraordinarily racist Police Department that they will stop you if hes in a car with a white woman and he represents something that certain people want to hold out what they are afraid of. But there is a lot more opportunity inside of that. Almost any job you want you can get. Nobody will take away your property based on race or have a sign that says whites only. Talk about his migration from texas to los angeles that is part of the great migration happening in our country. Why is that part of the story . I am from los angeles. The people in l. A. And that started there or move through there. These stories have not been told. And that nobody would talk about. You dont exist unless you exist in fiction. They dont say i want to learn something today. All of them and those people have migrated from houston after the war. California was like heaven for this southern negro. You could get enough work to retire any the fruit of the trees. The truth is not like the dream but it was truth for the most part but every day still found yourself on the bottom. What were Race Relations like . In the subconscious and the unconscious of america and the best thing with the european culture even if you didnt work hard you were better because of what you were. If you were very smart torch a condo or black or asian people look down on you and make assumptions of what you could or could not do. And if there was anger and resentment. It was hard then to see what they were looking at. To put something on it that wasnt true. What about black men versus black women quick. I think black men, people are more afraid of black men and more afraid of their anger and of what has happened to them. Normally they dont think its violent but then they do. They have been kept out of the hero category. And the black characters were more protagonist and less he rose. Today in america everybody suffers from it. Moves towards a small group of people that own everything they dont care what color you are, what gender you are, they are going to take advantage no matter what and i think america is responding to that, they are making a mistake in thinking it must be these other people who are not white. It must be their fault that it happened, but its not of course, its the fault of capitalism, unchecked. Host his home is very important to him. What do you say in the concept of ownership because its not just in fearless jones which is narrated by a character whos a Small Business owner with a bookstore in la in the 1950s. The concept of ownership, who has it, who doesnt and why is it important . Guest if you go back to the beginning of america, a citizen has to be a property owner. There is a political connection, but as an investment, literal investment in the nation that you have a citizenship awaits and i think its true that if you are not a property owner, then you ar are immigrant and if you are in my grant, you are not that important. You cant vote. Maybe people dont Pay Attention to you, maybe people will just kind of gerrymandering you out of existence but the property that cant be taken away, that this is my land, most people before the war are her role so that means something. Whether or not, it does mean something and the fact he has a plot right here that makes me a citizen. Host this is a mystery novel crimes are committed and he has thoughts on the Justice System. You wrote this in his voice i thought it was wrong for a man to be murdered and in a more Perfect World i felt that the killer should be brought to justice. But i didnt believe there was justice for negroes. I thought there might be justice for black men if he had the money. Money isnt a sure bet that its the closest to god that ive ever seen in this world. Guest yes i wrote it, i thought it then and i think its now. And i think most people in america, i think when i wrote this book and a pure cod its ae that is coming out, a lot of people thought there is justice and its not based on how much money you have or who represents you were how popular you are but now people look at it like if i dont have money, im not going to get a fair shake and if i dont have money and im black im really not going to get a fair shake. Its just a truism black people in america have known ever since we came here to. But as time has gone on, many more people have begun to understand it. First only in their appreciation of music and culture like the blues had certain elements in a jazz and also rhythm and blues, but as time has gone on, its entered into literature and general knowledge. Host was the part of the motivation to write this book, to talk about the Justice System and did you choose the form of a mystery novel because of that as well . Guest i chos guest i chose the form because i liked mysteries and i like Raymond Chandler and sara. Once i started writing about it, the Justice System sort of appeared. It wasnt like it was my goal to write it out and i think anybody reading my books would be able to make different decisions on things that have happened. You will say i think this is right or i think this is wrong. As a fiction writer, im i never trying to tell you what you should think. I will tell you what rowlings things and Raymond Allen tanner and the police stopping him, but im not going to tell you what you should think. Host i watched a book review of one of the books and the woman giving the book review suggested to her audience you really need to read the whole series. Mr. Mosley, beginning to end otherwise if you pick up one book that you dont know how he knows or mouse or mama jones. She said that mr. Mosley have an index . Guest one, it means somebody sees a book and want to read it and you say youve got to read all 14 of them. My god ive got to read 14 books. I barely have time to read one. But another thing coming each book you may not know the events that led up to the relationship, however, you do know how he knows mouse, how he feels about her, how she feels, you know all this because im writing a novel, not a chapter. Host so you continue on with the devil in devil in a bd obviously focus on la. But the latest puck down the river onto the cd takes place in new york with a former black nypd investigator as a protagonist. What inspired you to write this story into the city where you are today in new york . Guest well, you know, there was like a political spark that started this story. Im thinking about blackness specifically, eddie conway in baltimore maryland or pennsylvania, the man people are protesting about who got killed in san diego and also the guy that got killed in new orleans. Im thinking about all, the response to oppression in a community that usually isnt talked about, where a guy will be walking down the street and that the police will stop him, search and didnt question him very closely and let him go. He walks three more blocks and goes through the thing again. As angry as he gets because he is just walking down the street, he has to make sure that he never expresses that anger because if he expresses it, then something bad is going to happen. If you add that he becomes a journalist a political activist from anybody that makes the movement from anybody that does not come that they get a target on their back and on their content on both sides is a target. They are very likely to be hurt. I wanted to create a detective who was a policeman and although he was black he was a policeman, said he isnt going to feel sensitive about this man murdered and on death row, not going to feel good about that. But as he investigates the case and sees what happened, he proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that this guy yes he probably killed them, but they were definitely trying to kill him, and it was as far as he could tell selfdefense. And then what happens when you know Something Like that and what kind of decisions you make and that is what i wanted to do with this book. Host you talked about about about remind the viewers who that is. Guest a political activist, journalist in philadelphia, who the police say he got into the gunbattle with them. He says he didnt. A police man or two died and he was sentenced to death. For me like if you kill somebody, then you should pay with whatever the wall has to say thats what you have to do. But if there are extenuating circumstances they at least have to come out and we have to see them. Its true for a lot of people here. Anybody watching the thing in new orleans where you see somebody on top of somebody, his knee holding him down, shooting him say there is something wrong with this picture. The policemen should never be doing that, never. And if it does happen, then you have to wonder what everybody else is going to be thinking and feeling and how they are going to respond. And that is what the novel addresses. Host did you speak to him . Guest no. Host so how do you then grasp from that story or any story you try to incorporate into your writing . Guest that story is our story. I was watching more than anything else a guy being interviewed, he had a complex here and there, two different housings, the policemen came and started going to Children Together so the children of the games at least play football together and may b maybe slowlyd of quirks and stuff out. One of the guys was asked as children were playing, what do you think about this. He said its kind of amazing to me. The way that im used to the police, they grabbed me come up with me in handcuffs, beat me and throw me in jail. Thats my relationship with the police, thats what that guy said, this is like a general knowledge. And not just among black people, chicanos, all the different people coming in a month poor white people in america. That the Police Become people who are trying to force you to fit inside an order that may not be conducive to your life and lifestyle. And because of that, you have to write about it and so even though its about these black characters, its about kind of like america and understanding that america and because back to the issue of how much money you have and who is protecting you into taking care of you and who feels that you are an enemy. Host your next book due out in september. What is this about . Guest its a novel about a guy who is a historian but it also starts when he was a kid growing up, he kills a guy, selfdefense, but he kills a guy and completely recreates himself so that he was he doesnt have the same name, he doesnt have the same birth certificate, he doesnt have anything the same and when he does, he becomes what hes done so he becomes the deconstructionist historian. And its following him through this path of how he sees himself and the world around him and how he teaches and he discovers things about himself. One of thing the things he discs is that hes a sociopath and that has helped him in america to become successful. One of the things i believe is if theres something wrong with you if you are a sociopath of any sort, youd probably be more successful in america than if you were not. Host how do publishers respond to your ideas that are not in ej rowlings books . Guest i give them a couple of minutes and then i say im going to write a book like unfortunate son were all these books ive written so when i want to give them that they say no so i go to another publisher and i say if you publish this i will write another mystery and they say okay and they publish that book and industry and i want to write another and they say on the mysteries from now on so i go to another. Its gone on forever. Host youve written a love of books as you said. Do the characters in the book reflects people in your life . Guest thats a hard question to answer because obviously it must in some way, but i dont write about myself. I dont write about people i know. I dont write about my mother or my father, but i write about worlds that are experiences. So anyway, yeah, but mostly no. Host who is Raymond Alexander and how did you come up with the idea of his character . Guest mouse is an interesting character for me. When i was a kid, my father had a friend who he was just as crazy as mouse and key made his living doing lots of things but one was hijacking liquor trucks, said he would get a whole bunch of cases of whiskey and bring one of the cases to my father and say hold this to be a part of the. Now of course my father would put it away but one night people come afraid he says i have some whiskey so they would pullout a bottle and drink it. He would come back into there was only nine or ten bottles left so he would say how much do you owe me and my father would pay him for the two bottles. That guy was in a game in a barber shoand abarber shop and n argument and the guy says you owe me a nickel and youre going to pay me right now. He says no and so the guy kills him, sharpton right there in the barbershop and he was sent to prison for murder and will spend the rest of his life there. I was too young to remember him so i dont remember him, i dont think about him, but the story sparked mouse for me and hes a very different character, but it comes from that story. Host the youtube review of your book a woman asked if he would make a book about Raymond Alexander, maybe write a book or two about him. Guest well, you know, raymond is a pure sociopath like for example john isnt a pure sociopath, he belongs inside the system for most of the things he does, and a certain set of circumstances happen, hes going to go way outside the box, but only then. Mouse lives outside of the box. The sociopath living outside the box, you know what hes going to do. Ive never had a story pop up in my head about raymond all by himself. Host ms. Jackson blew based on . Guest she has a lot of my characteristics in him. They are very smart, they like the sedentary intellectual pursuits, reading, writing, thinking, debating. Jackson blew it is technologically brilliant. He knows everything about computers before computers become themselves. I like writing about those characters because its rare there are so many things that are not written about blackmun but one of them is this guy is a genius. He can do anything. Hes also a coward. Hes afraid of his own shadow in his shadow goes a great distance but hes frightened of it. I like that because not everybody has to be big and strong and courageous. Hes small and scrawny and afraid of anything. And i like that character especially because hes also edgy. Host is a computer genius and you were a Computer Programmer. Guest i wasnt a genius but i was a Computer Programmer and i liked kind of giving him that. Host i think in one of the books he says about jackson blew that he only had bookshelves everywhere in his home once he made it and he only kept the books he was going to read it twice. Do you have that same philosophy . Guest i like to because it is kind of a way you look at your bookshelf and say these books you havent looked at them for 12 years and they are not doing anything on the shelf but know that if you give them to a book store or library or put them outside in a box, people will pick them up and read them and thats what books are for, they are to be read, not to sit there on the shelf. Host why is that important . Guest i think that reading is important because its the closest thing that we have two active thinking. I love music, i love film and stuff like that, but those things are much more passive as a rule. But when you are reading you are actually creating the images you are reading about and thoughts and ideas and systems of thought so when you are reading like that, your mind is getting exercise but it doesnt get doing anything else other than working and learning and work from experience or being educated by somebody close to you like your parents or a boss that is concerned. Host was there a message that they were sending about education and the importance of reading your books because he realizes he needs to read more. He says to his son that wants to drop out of high school yes but you need to read with me every day and explain what youve read in your own words. He has a character that is a reader. Guest there is no competing with jackson. You wont end up being jackson blew anyway. But i think that its an interesting thing to talk about and to support that the mind is a really important sphere and we have to Pay Attention and theres only certain ways we can do it. And also, its just so much talking about especially black men in america they are primal, sexualprimalhomosexual, all thee things that im happy about, but also i like reading the history of the world because the history of the world is interesting to me. Ive always known in my life intelligent black man who could read and discuss and play with ideas with other people and thats really important. I think everybody should be writing about it, not just me, but its not the only thing. If someone says in order to be a writer you have to read, i would say im not sure if thats true. The greatest novelist in the lineage of the west is homer. He was blind and illiterate but he knew how to tell stories. The telling of stories is more important than reading other stories people write. That doesnt mean the reading is important that just means it may not make you a writer. Host what about what you read because you wrote that the library in, he comes to the library and a black woman is reading catcher in the rye with a scowl on her face and he asks for a du like the book and she says i do but i cant imagine some black kid or latino kid reading this book. How are they supposed to relate. Guest thats true. Host hes whining about his life. Guest i dont like my car. If i had his money i would be happy. I dont understand why they would kill themselves if they have all this money. A nice big house. That is the notion, but i dont have any limits on what you should read because what you like and what you dont like, who knows what it is. Its not defined by your gender or race or class, none of that. Some love reading charles dickens, but you should read what you love to read and if you open a book and this story really draws me in, then read it. If its george eliot, fine. I dont care. Host another character that is in throughout the series is edna, who is she . Guest that woman who has the strengths and weaknesses black women have had to carry since they got dragged over here. Children they cant keep or control, and then they cant keep or control, lives they have to hold together whether they can control whats around them or not. Theres there is a string that s the world around them. Not all black women of course, but she is the ideal woman and which is why both love her and she loves both of them. The problem is that she loves mouse more and he is more of a problem than the ec would ever be that you cant help who you love. Host and mama jo. Guest that ms. Cho and spiritual woman that i think a lot of us have and create because without it, we become less because the society defines us off less but if i believe i can reach a place that you cant understand, that gives the rou round. Its like owning property because i understand something about the world that you couldnt possibly understand and whether that is true or not doesnt even matter. Host after devil in a blue dress, you wrote the book jacket says readers will find the political, legal and moral targets of los angeles in the early 50s when redbaiting and blacklisting were official policy and racial tensions boiled. Whatever the political, legal and moral targets of the time . Guest its interesting because my mother was jewish and her family had come here around 1908, 19,101st new york and migrated to los angeles. These people were people who understood the plight of black people in america because they had almost the exact same experience in europe. They had lived in ghettos, people hung them, people burned them, people called them a different race, excluded them from society in general. A lot of them because of that for content and they were part of the revolution. They were behind the revolution. The revolution didnt like them, but they were a big part of creating it. One of these characters is a guy living in los angeles who decided to give secrets that america has too everybody, and because of that, he was being run down. It wasnt somebody who it was somebody that had done what he thought was right. The government thought it was wrong and against the wall and he got very involved in what was happening with that guy and his daughter. Host so what is redbaiting, what is happening at this time in the country and in la . Guest thats the thing if you were you know, we hated the russians in the late 30s and then as soon as school and realized that hitler didnt really like him, we had a deal with them and they became our allies and a lot of people support of russia and russias s heroic battle against germany, but then as the 50s came, the same people became a great target, so anybody who had been a socialist or had belonged to a group or had been friends with somebody who might have one date on it were really depressed by mccarthy and by almost everyone and those people were the firstt i think socalled white americans began to understand how you could be singled out, tortured, arrested, imprisoned, kept from having jobs for something you believe in, for something you were. Host how was disinfecting africanamericans at this time . Guest there were some very famous ones like paul robeson and stuff like that, i think Harry Belafonte had some problems, his friends did. But if you were not successful, it really wasnt the house unamerican activities wasnt going to call him a janitor who had, you know, the communist manifesto in his pocket because they didnt get any kind of political prudence he also said. So a lot of us were just like right, you can say whatever you want, nobodys listening. But if you have an important job and important position, if you if what you said in the many americans, any kind of cultural, political impact, then you were treated poorly. Most poor people it kind of went right over them. Host were Race Relations shifting at this point . Red dust is taking place in the early 50s. Guest the thing about america and shifting Race Relations, they are always shifting, but they never get solved. Its a shifting, but still you have people wandering around saying im light even though it doesnt make sense to say youre white. In europe there were no white people. There were britons and like ten different races. Really, the list goes on and on. And as the spanis that is the se greeks and scandinavians. They were not the same race as the greeks. They knew they were not carried even the greeks and romans didnt think they were the same race, but they came to america, they oppressed. They wanted to kill the indians because they owned the land. It was bears, so they need to get rid of them and they enslaved black people to build the land. So because they had socalled red people to, you know, slaughter, and socalled black people to do a lot of the worst kind of labor, they said well, we are all white. Thats the only way it makes sense because even, you know, if you have blue eyes were green eyes or brown eyes or what kind of hair, you know people are different. There is no truly black people or white people. Just various shades as we relate to each other. So to say things are shifting are changing, yes. Things get better we get a president but still underneath there is a problem that could always fall backwards into chao chaos. Host we went our callers to join in and join us the special fiction addition. As a make our way through 50 bucks he has written. I asked the question because Race Relations are shifting he has seen more black man of authority at this time. He is seeing it but also at the same time what you have to give up in order to move into that level. He does favors for people in his Community Nobody tells them who you can do favors for he makes every decision what he is doing on a casebycase level. Thats it and he recognizes they have to give up some of their choice so things shift but we still believe in the basic untruth. The backdrop of the book is the church so in the entire world the more oppressed you are the more religion takes the primary role in your life because you needed absolute form of organization to hope for a better time in this world are beyond that. So everybody will eat in that community we worship together so tightly and so segregated the church was one of the only ways. You had no representation. So the Church Becomes one of the strongest forms for us to take care of ourselves. How did that influence your life . My parents were so funny the one time we really discussed religion we hoped it was true but then they also worked for education in los angeles so they sent me to a private Baptist School that was nine dollars a week it was all black kids and black teachers teaching africanamerican history in the fifties. They liked me. The most important thing for a child in education that they are loved. And they felt cared for. In a new that what happened to me in the schools in los angeles so they sent me to private school. Did that impact who you are today . Honestly i was never religious and never believed in anything we have bible verses and i loved it but i know that the biggest impact is by your parents in my childhood friend im sure thats important and there are some things so if you can think of the perimeter of the entire novel that its not an awful. There are many things that have impacted me and change me who i am and its difficult to know to those are. Another aspect is alcoholism easy rawlins struggles with the other characters struggle with addiction and you wrote it shines when the light hits it the precious things like jewels and gold capable of any emotion and whiskey sour. A lot of people would agree with that some people think they have to self medicate. I drink so much. I almost died twice and i quit for 40 years and then i started again. Because i thought i dont want to die. But we knew it was such a danger because it can destroy you and it has the potential to destroy you. My father drink every day im absolutely sure because he drank there are people he did not kil kill. Why do you say that . He was enraged and a proud man he could do almost anything and he was a good leader but a black man in america and all of that time he was treated black and pushed aside people were not as good as he was. And alcohol . The guy talk to my father the drinking may have killed him he never drank at work that he would get home and blow off steam that is true for so many people in america. And the issue is how we live our life. Thats not the way human being should leave. We wake up every day at a certain time and make kids go somewhere far away to be educated and dont make quite enough money to assure a good life thats not the way people should live that you live in a society to create enough that everybody has a Little Something in the future is assured with the maintenance protections are there. Some people work harder. Some people build the second story on their house. There is that song i old one i know my soul to the company store. You are just deeper in debt every day he also says that another day older and deeper in debt. Thats a problem a lot of people have they drink alcohol or smoke dope or do opioids it dulls the pain. Host why did you quit . I put my arm through a plate glass window and drove off the side of a mountain i was almost dying. Why did you start . Anyway would it do it anymore. I do like drinking. I dont drink myself into oblivion. Host during those about addiction and how that relates to political oppression. Yes. That book, im trying to say the system tells us these are the realities this is a you should be in school and relationships there is a whole other set of rules. I havent written the book in a while so i dont remember the steps but and it really doesnt care about us in general. What is the system . It ends that people being with the most power and the people who pay the politicians to give them the money to be in that situation of control i remember i needed 10000 on i needed 10000 to a senatorial candidate. I did it because somebody asked me to. But then they said we are having lunch with a candidate. Who is we . The ten people that gave the 10000 so they can talk to this person. So i went and we talked. And i realized what word i get if i gave a hundred thousand or 1 million . But my power should be no more than my vote. My power is my vote. If you have 100,000 and you are a corporation that doesnt mean anything. But that person knows im not saying anything new. That this is the problem with america. Confusing democracy with capitalism. That they need to be separate money shouldnt enter into my government they should take money from me like tax is but not letting them is my airplane or the job that i give them after. Host there is a lot more to go through and other topics but lets listen to what our viewers have to say steve and Richmond Virginia good afternoon. Caller good afternoon. Mr. Mosley i have been waiting to say hello to you. I am one of your best readers and you have a wonderful opportunity to listen to you. Have you gave much effort to get into other writing styles or is that more sciencefiction i will take your comment off the air. I have written 14 books of Science Fiction at least ten literary novels five or six books of nonfiction now working with a fellow mystery writer to develop a western series if anyone wants to buy it. I have written a lot in fact every genre that i want to write and i havent written a romance novel but i dont want to. So if you look at the different books one is called 47 it is a slave on the plantation in the 18 forties he meets an alien and forms a bond and how his life goes forward. Always outnumbered he said you published 47. 2009. The long fall. And your new book was published this year. Eugene what state are you in . Caller i have to tell you. You have always been inspirational to me because i always wanted to write a book and we share the same last name. And all the fictional the truth comes out from what you say through all your novels. And the most important thing that inspired me is my father he received a congressional gold metal and gave me a base of which to write something that i thought was of great substance and i have to tell you i feel im moving toward the downstroke i just want to thank you for your inspiration all these year years. Thank you very much and also maybe you dont need this now that a while ago people would say how do i write a novel . Maybe its only one hours worth of talking to explain it. But i wrote a book you write this year your novel. Its everything that i now. Also truth and fiction there is more truth and fiction and nonfiction because and nonfiction you keep editing the things out and so they only talk about one side of the story when there could be six or seven different sides. I appreciate that it is a big challenge but it is hard. Host california. Caller hello. I love your books because it brings back to my childhood visiting my sister during the summer in l. A. In the early sixties. Have you thought about making a movie like John Singleton or spike lee . Yes. I would love to make more movies about easy rollins. Its not an easy thing to do. I keep trying to do tv shows or films. I get to a certain point and then it doesnt work so i will try again. I would start with black betty and that would be good but its not my choice. A lot of people were interested. I met a woman who just started in the business at the time. She knew the right moves to make so we all got together. Its such a great film with all the actors really it was a perfect moment. Host did you have a role in making the movie . Im always outnumbered and outgunned. But i was the associate producer what you think about this . Whatever he said i would say yes that sounds good because he would do it anyway. Host mentioning black betty and white butterfly at the center of these two books are black women. What is happening at this time with black women and their sexuality . Has that changed . It is in a dominant moment in our lives and also hidden. Black women have often experienced their sexuality has been taken away from them in the general culture. So you say what is that . Appreciating beauty based on another culture. But at least you could pretend. I think black women always had the weight of the community on their shoulders children were responsible. They were responsible for a kind of life that came easy. In the fifties and sixties. And black women have a more prominent role but i never say im speaking for them but the great thing about literature in the sixties through the eighties black literature was dominated by black women toni morrison, mcmillan, and many others, and now they try to figure out how to share it. Easy rollins i was on the warpath others i didnt know were also. I dont know what i meant. Is the one easy rollins talks about not respecting women. There were camps between men and women and they were angry because the women would ask them to do things in a way that would humiliate them and women were angry at man because they couldnt keep home and hearth together. But its a time of great love and understanding. You have a guy that says its better if im not home because then you get public assistance if i with you you cant but if i leave you can. Also a lot of people who get along really well. And most conflicts in the world they dont hate each other as the groups who get angry listening to them and not the reality. Host what do you try to say in the books about marriage . And in the black community . I now. Somebody asked me to comment marriages and interesting institution with our cultures before world war i knowledge doubled every century all the way back and it kept getting faster and faster now it doubles every ten months. This is why everything we do is almost obsolete before we get halfway into it now we do Something Else or Something Else i drove a taxi with the medallion but that doesnt work because now huber came in. And taking over the labor so that marriage in america in general doesnt have the same place that it did one century ago. But its hard to change that notion. Its hard for black people and everybody so i would never say im trying to comment on the institution of marriage before i finish the sentence it will have changed. James from philadelphia. Caller good afternoon mr. Mosley. I met you at Temple University around 2009 and you were on a panel and sign the book for me. When i am amazed about your writing is the ease that you move through genre its ironic that you write Science Fiction because i have read your books and recently i have been enjoying your cross channel series stepping stone and the gift of fire. And the other comment is to me mouse i often wonder sometimes how would mouse deal maybe he can get together with ace howard he deal with hot . [laughter] off. I think hawk is a bad man but mouse to give him a run for his money but i am a great admirer of yours. And he might be the best fiction writer writing today. Thank you so much. I will keep that with me i like to write characters who i think have a strong place in the world that is what you want i also want to write about heroes because there are so many he rose coming out of our community the heroes need to be heard. Host a facebook comment from a viewer i believe you want said you cant write a decent poem to save your life you continue to read the poetry of others because it forms your fiction writing. Understanding poetry is one of the basic requirements for writing fiction that poetry does everything it does metaphor, simile, music choosing one word of what you mean and brings things together in a form that is abstract and feels real poetry is the most important thing we writers need to know and understand. Is the original language if there is one language for everybody it would be poetry because thats the way we understand the world and express the world. We see material and we bring those together. Host i have a question where you encouraged to write a Nonfiction Book by your publisher or a friend or your idea. Everything is my own idea other than another easy rollins novel nobody encourages me to do anything. I cant only write easy rollins that was that i wouldve stopped a long time ago. Host tell our viewers what black betty is about. It is about a woman who was living a really hard life and was hard set in the life. And i was thinking thats harder and harder and more difficult and then she would die at the end and it would be a tragedy. But i realized somebody to love so much and connected to her world that would be a relief. And her survival is more tragic minutes of the most successful easy rollins novels. You have more of an insight. Rather than working with mouse then you really begin to understand what it would be like if you are extraordinarily successful must have some crimes in their closet. And you can see how hard his life is and to see easy being involved, you also see how powerful he is. Easy find out how powerful he is which he never knew before. Host explained that evolutio evolution. He talks to charcoal and says have you always been trying to lie to me and get me killed . He says no. I would never mess with you. You are the most dangerous man in los angeles, im talking about your friends. I wouldnt cross any of them and they are all behind you. So easys sociability gives him a great deal of power. Doesnt give him money that it does give him power. Some people wield great power but they are not successful in capitalistic endeavors. Host the first page the world is changing and black man in america had a chance to be a black man for the first time in hundreds of years. Yes. At that point entering the sixties, people are getting education in the forties and before you could study at harvard if you were black there was always something being held black back but the problem is it was still harder to achieve your goal and the goals had to be smaller and you had to act in a certain way. They asked her to give back one nobel prize because she was having an affair. Why should i give it back . Im keeping it. You have the affair but there was the expectation on her even my gone black people today. Even the fact that ez says it. From davis california your next. How are you . Thank you for the good word about poetry and congratulations on your new novel. Talk about your writing habits. Do you write in the morning or the afternoon or at night . Nice to talk to you clearanc clearance. When i say a novel is bigger in your head the creation is your conscious mind it comes from a practice not unlike psychoanalysis to spend every day two or three hours like free association. And putting them in order but i am writing. That then the next morning i write and the next morning. That is 21 hours in between all the stuff is happening i dont have an awareness but the next day new things are there and have come to the service one surface. It goes on and on i have written almost every day the last 28 years unless im sick or an airplane but every other time i write about three hours maybe only two but every day every da day. Every day i write i get deeper into my understanding of the larger story. Host when you are not writing how are you collecting your thoughts . I dont worry about it. It happens in the back of my head. Its hard to explain. I say just give it 100 days just right for an hour or an hour and a half every day. You will see the way you think and the way you organize and the way the parts come together get better and better and better and it happens over the years. Host you write in your books describing characters , their personal features and how that reflects their personality. Is it modeled after people . Not on purpose. Really is not an argument but the argument i am making to say do you study people is consciousness like you already have the structure you need you have to fill in the data. 5foot 11 inches or 3foot inches or better blue or pink or the floor but you see all these things and you experience them floating around in your head if you write for three hours and then the stuff you have written reaches out to the things in your head you havent thought about. You didnt study them you just notice or what whiskey looks like with light shining through that. I didnt study that but i translated in the back of my mind and then it comes out. Host virginia go ahead. Caller hello mr. Mosley. My family and i are friends of yours on fans of yours. Do you thank you can see dozens of washington and cheatham continuing their series . No. That is a good question. I did ask them and they said no. So its not happening. Host why . What was the reason . They just said no. [laughter] right now they have aged mouse and easy would be the same age as don and then sell that they have their own careers. They are doing other things Denzel Washington is doing all of these plays. And don is producing and acting moving further out it is something they did and they are moving on. I dont have anything against them. I may go back to the beginning for easy anyway starting with devil in a blue dress and go from there so i would need younger actors. Host you mean one movie covering this series . No devil. But that was 30 years ago. It could be a remake by this point and that would be a good thing. Thats what im thinking right now. Host Richmond Virginia. Caller hello. Mr. Mosley i would like to say i am a great fan and im happy about your comments earlier about readers and how important reading is because i have a great love of reading stories. Im not a writer at all. But the character of yours i am wondering what made you write him and how he has evolved . He seems like he is a distillation of the other characters. How did he come about . Actually a publisher came to me and said write a short story im doing a collection about dangerous women. I had the title first about a young woman trying to get revenge against an older private detective who had framed her father for something and got killed. You dont know that at first but she tries to frame him for something he had done to her father 20 years before. She almost succeeds in destroying him but doesnt she dies because she kills herself and she will blame him for her death. But it doesnt happen and then he realizes his whole life hes been doing the wrong thing. Now he has to turn his life around to do the right thing. He is current and today he doesnt run into the same troubles. Because the relationships the black people to the world is very different from the thirties and forties and fifties and sixties. Im writing a short story. Can you hear me . Okay. You are a New Discovery for me and im enjoying watching you. Are you aware . I am not sure. Caller benjamin was a jewish plantation owner he had a plantation in new orleans and was a member of the confederate cabinet secretary of war and attorney general of the confederacy. Yes i think i do know him but i lost the name. Caller youre also probably familiar. Me and names is a troubled thing. I didnt know about benjamin until i went through the studies that tell me. Caller he is a black jew. Yes. Okay yes. So here is a black plantation owner and member of the confederate cabinet who goes to an auction in new orleans and by is a black slave unknown to him. So a black jewish plantation owner unknown to him and owns a black jewish slave. Anyway just an idea to share with you. I like that. I like that story. Host how Much Research do you need for your book with history and newspapers . The first time i was asked that question how sad it made me. Jennifer beals called and said i want to have dinner with you and have one and ask you some questions. I love her and she asked me the same question how Much Research do you do . I want to research my character. I tried to figure out how to lie and i said i dont research. And i finish writing the book i make sure things are wrong want to make sure the cotton gin already existed, and it did. But as a rule, today not historically that fiction is more about character than thing things. Im not trying to educate people about things but talk about how people deal in that world. Host i want to read this piece before you respond to explain the premise, there is still oppression now the early sixties in l. A. And at a may response to the comments with a young talent could make it like Louis Armstrong and she says and for every one of armstrong of black boys go around the block. The streets eat up our men especially in this country. Thats true. This is true for everyone born in poverty. Everything is against you succeeding. And if you accept that militant attitude they will survive and so much is more against you. It is so much more that a lot of people die from it. Even those at the pinnacle of success. And one had a diabetic attack in the hospital wouldnt take him so he died. You are killed by all kinds of things. Sometimes they just close the door. Host what is the emotion that you get . The emotion, i think it could be a lot of Different Things but for me it is the heroism of the character to try to get beyond where he or she is to make it to a better place for themselves which will help a bunch of other people no matter what if they succeed or not but the fact they are trying. Host robber in philadelphia. Caller hello. I have been an admirer of yours for a number of years. I am a struggling fiction writer and a retired social worker i find it and incredible release since i had to immerse myself intimately into the struggles of other peoples for a number of years and i see that in your work but as a writer i find reading is as important as writing. So what you read and what authors are influential to you . Thats an interesting question. I start by saying if there is a young black woman who says who do you read and she says Phyllis Wheatley and then they say nora because they do know or alice walker or maia angelou or toni morrison, but the reason they tell you those writers is because they want you to think of their work in relation but the truth is that woman when she was a child it was nancy drew because as a child reading is an amazing thing it is real in your brain you are completely transported into the world of fiction no more words are printed it is images and things the same girl reading beloved thats a tough story for a chil child. The same thing is true for me. I started with comic books and then later Langston Hughes but then old books like robert louis stevenson. Is not so much the writers or anything real but me enjoying the adventure of the book. When i grew older, i love the idea of telling the same kind of stories in different ways that transported me. Thats the way i would say reading has impacted if not influenced how i write. Host we will pick up on that but we are at the halfway point. We will take a short break. Hang on and keep dialing in. When we come back we will show you the trailer from devil in a blue dress 1995 directed by Carl Franklin. We will be right back. L. A. Was a world of sunshine and shadows. Black and white. My name is ezequiel rollins. He thought he knew how to play the game. Until he stepped into a world where there are no rules. And he is looking for a woman and getting in deeper than he ever expected. You are looking for me. You can trust me. I am the next mayor. Seduced by power. Easy rawlins is searching for the truth. From the Academy Award winning producers of philadelphia and silence of the lambs. Denzel washington. Devil in a blue dress. A Carl Franklin film. Congressman trey gowdy det dispg jobs in the war on normal people. Look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for many of the authors in the near future on booktv on cspan2. Im going to read to you from all quiet on the western front by i will read you from all quiet on the western front. I am doing this because this is the book has the mood that i feel not only here in new york that all over the world. Few of us are allowed to get up giving crutches to hobble around but i dont make use of them. I cannot bear his gaze as hisis eyes follow with a strange look. Sometimes i escape to the core door and was about more freely. The next floor birth flow is double amputations and head wounds for those of the testicles or kidneys or intestines. Realizing for the first time how many places a man can get hit. To man died. Only their eyes with live. Many wounded have shattered lives hanging free and then every two or three hours of the soul is emptied of the pus. I see intestine wounds fall and the clerk shows me xray photographs of smashed hips and knees and shoulders. Nts there are still human faces and this is only one hospital. There are hundreds of thousands in germany and russia and how simple for anything that could be written of such things so when the culture of the thousand years cannot prevent the stream the torture chambers of hundreds of thousands. I have a young man 20 yearsea old and then to be cast over the abyss of sorrow how people in silence obediently and innocently slay one another. And to get it more refined and enduring and all men of my age see these things in all my generation experiences these things with me. What would we do if they stood before us . What would they expected for time ever comes when the war is over . It was her first calling and then knowledge is limited. What will happen afterwards . And what should come out of us . [applause] it the