Роман Уолтера Мосли «Дьявол в синем платье» раскрывает жизнь чернокожего ветерана в расистском Лос-Анджелесе 1948 года

Devil in a Blue Dress…or Gabardine??? Review by Juliette Welch Easy Rawlins does not think he’s a good guy. He’s just a guy trying to pay his mortgage. So, when he’s fired and a shady job falls in his lap, he’s forced to take it. It’s a wild ride from then on. In Devil in a Blue Dress, author Walter Mosley introduces Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a Black World War II veteran living in Los Angeles in 1948. After losing his job, he’s at his neighbourhood bar when the owner points a sharp-dressed man his way. Easy calls him a great white, both for his stature and his complexion. The dichotomy between Easy’s world of Black people and the white world of his shady employers is a tenuous one throughout the book. Mosley’s Los Angeles is not the glamorous city that tends to appear in old Hollywood stories. It is divided sharply by race and money, and Easy is constantly aware of where he can and cannot go, who he can trust, and how white people see him. The fact that Easy is a veteran makes some of this even more interesting. He has served his country, but coming home does not mean that the country suddenly treats him as an equal. He is still expected to understand his place. The depth of Easy’s inner voice and character is what really drew me in. Every whisper, overturned brick, or passing glance is brought up and examined by Easy, almost without him wanting to. He spends the book (and 17 subsequent novels) wanting a calm, normal life, yet he spends his time examining the people around him like they’re in a fish tank. Mosley also uses Easy as an examination of how a good person can be a bad guy; Easy is largely fine with threats and blackmail, and with stepping over some people to get to others, if it helps him. But he’ll help them stand up afterward, if they let him. Easy’s mission is to track down an enigmatic femme fatale, Daphne Monet, aka Ruby Hanks, who has suddenly and mysteriously disappeared. Monet/Hanks hovers between the racial divide, and the more Easy finds out about her, the more he seems to recognize a kindred spirit—someone who ruthlessly manipulates and uses people to get her way. … Subscribe to read the full review and more, published in full every Friday