Title: Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
Publication Year: 1990
Plot: In Los Angeles of the late 1940s, Easy Rawlins, a black war veteran, has just been fired from his job at a defense plant. Easy is drinking in a friend’s bar, wondering how he’ll meet his mortgage, when a white man in a linen suit walks in, offering good money if Easy will simply locate Miss Daphne Monet, a blonde beauty known to frequent black jazz clubs.
Miscellaneous: The novel was adapted into a 1995 film starring Denzel Washington
With everyone loving The Big Sleep last week, I was curious to see what they thought of Mosley’s detective novel. I had never read it myself, so I didn’t have any preconceived notions regarding the novel.
Well, we had quite the range of reactions. Personally, I thought it was okay. One reader really did not enjoy it, and the other two had positive feelings. Our conversation began with the language, like it did with The Big Sleep. The readers did not feel as grounded in the 1940s as they expected to be. The language was a bit more modern, which led them to drift around in their mind in regards to when and where this story took place. Granted, Chandler actually published The Big Sleep in 1939 as opposed to Devil being published 61 years later. Additionally, the readers felt many of the characters fell flat; they were entirely one-dimensional, making it hard to invest in them or their motives or feelings. One reader in particular had a hard time with Daphne and why everyone in the novel was so interested in her. “She was so flat and we really don’t know a lot about her.”
One reader suggested the novel would’ve been better had it not been a detective novel. The scenery is cool and the era is cool. But the investigative wandering detracted from all of that. The readers commended a sense of realism in the novel, especially in depictions of bar scenes as well as race relations. The relationship between rich white men and Easy Rawlins felt complex and real to the readers. Easy has a way of expressing a sense of internalized racism. He realizes that he is accepted as a man to some, but attributes his mistreatment to his skin color, while Mosley hints that it could be due to his socio-economic status. This leads to an existential crisis of sorts for Easy. Where does he fit in? Who are his friends? What do people want from him?
Speaking of Easy…is he a hero in the story? In many of the scenes, he just so happens to be there and is more of a pawn or a passive actor. He is being saved by others. He feels like he is being manipulated by someone else, which he kind of is! He’s a gum shoe, for sure, but he doesn’t seem to make a lot of things happen all by himself.
Every once in a while, the author would throw in a “zoot suit” or some kind of cultural marker to remind the reader when the book is taking place. It feels forced.
We compared Devil to The Big Sleep. Both have a man hired to find a woman. Both have a simple crime that becomes more complicated as the novel goes on. And both novels have a cast of characters introduced at different points and the readers have to make sense of who they are and their level of importance. According to this reading group, Raymond Chandler pulls it off to a greater degree.
Next week, we venture into dystopian fiction with a book most people read in high school–Animal Farm by George Orwell. So tune in next week!
Please feel free to share your thoughts on Mosley, his work, and anything else related in the comments!
I also try to provide some supplemental reading materials in the form of papers, essays, and Q&As. Here is a link to an essay from 2001 by Marilyn C. Wesley on power and knowledge in Devil in a Blue Dress.
Until next time,
E.
You can purchase Devil in a Blue Dress from these places: