First things first....Walter Mosley can write and he can write very, very well. He can write mysteries and he can write science fiction and he can write just about anything he cares to write and I can almost guarantee that it will be excellent. Walter Mosley is a black man with a Jewish mother -- or is that a Jewish man with a Black father.....makes no difference.....Mosley writes about the black experience in the 50s and 60s in his Easy Rawlins series, and slightly more recent experience in his Leonid McGill books. For what it is like to go from 20 years in prison to life in LA, try the two books starring Socrates Fortlow. Now remember - for the most part, Mosley writes about the black experience in America -- and more specifically in Los Angeles. He carries the black experience theme into his science fiction writing as well and for some of the most inventive sci-fi I have ever read, try Futureland. See my review of Blonde Faith for more in depth coverage.
In The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, Mosley is back at it again - merging genres, exploring the nature of the nature of aging, and the human experience. Ptolemy Grey is 91 years old, in the grip of dementia, living alone in filth and squalor due to his inattentiveness - a recluse abused by the woman addict who lives above him, scared to go out without his great nephew Reggie, who comes by every few weeks and who has just died. Introduced at the wake to a family friend - Robyn Small - who is (at first) inexplicably taken with Grey and helps him to clean up his apartment and his life. Grey is introduced to a doctor who has an experimental treatment that will reinvigorate his body and mind -- at the price of shortening his life. Grey takes the deal and proceeds to investigate the cause of his great-nephews death while remembering the death of his childhood mentor, Coydog McCann. All the while his relationship with Robyn deepens and his memory and judgement returns in a flurry.
This is not a perfect novel - the artifice of the "special treatment" is thin, but the depiction of the plight of the aged and infirm is emotionally powerful. Mosley is clearly thinking about mortality and his musings over the purpose of life, relationships, and family -- and of memory and of loss. This is a tough book with a realistic picture of life at its end....but it is also warm and reaffirming regarding the nature of personal relationships and of caring. Mosley does his usual terrific job of word-work and description....I had trouble getting into the book because of the masterful job Mosley did at the beginning with the scattered recollections and perceptions of Grey in his dementia. Yes, there are a few deux-ex-machina instances, but get beyond those and this is a fantastically insightful and moving novel. I highly recommend it for your consideration.
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