Yikes - Another Book Down
Good God, I've finished yet another work of fiction. This one by Walter Mosley, The Man in My Basement. Here’s what NPR says about it:
Hey - that was deep - and I didn't even know it. I just enjoyed the Blakey character, like I've enjoyed the Easy Rawlins character in Mosley's other novels. Overall, The Man in My Basement was kind of creepy, a little disturbing - especially towards the end. Not the best book to read before going to sleep - which is about the only time I read these days.
Charles Blakey, the protagonist, is an African-American slacker who has lived a directionless life since being fired from his latest job. One day, Anniston Bennett, a wealthy, 57-year-old WASP, appears at Charles' doorstep and offers $50,000 to rent his basement for the summer. But there are a few conditions:
As a kind of self-punishment, Bennett transforms the basement into a locked cage. And an experimental relationship unfolds with Bennett playing the role of a white prisoner, with Blakey as his black jailer.
Mosley uses the mock prison-cell setting to play with the dynamics of race, freedom and manipulation. In exploring those topics, he gives a nod to classic existentialist novels of the past.
Hey - that was deep - and I didn't even know it. I just enjoyed the Blakey character, like I've enjoyed the Easy Rawlins character in Mosley's other novels. Overall, The Man in My Basement was kind of creepy, a little disturbing - especially towards the end. Not the best book to read before going to sleep - which is about the only time I read these days.
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