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AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 2020
Walter Mosley’s ‘Awkward Black Man’ Short Stories Speak to Every Man BY YOLANDE CLARK-JACKSON
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he Awkward Black Man by Walter Mosley is a collection of 17 short stories about Black men who haphazardly manage relationships and the odd thoughts running wild in their own minds. It presents unique vantage points while expertly providing moments of humanity that make up an ordinary life. “I wanted to write about the kind of Black guy you don’t see in movies, television or literature,” Mosley told M·I·A magazine in a phone interview about the inspiration for this collection. The characters range from the mundane to the surreal and crazed. Among the diverse protagonists, Mosley presents a mad scientist, an unlikely cowboy and a ghost. All of the characters will challenge readers to reflect on identity, culture, and the language. Yet, at the core, Mosley said, “Each story is us trying to understand a Black male reality today in America.” Mosley places a careful eye on each of his characters, pushing them through a series of thoughts and interactions, revealing insights about the struggles with identity and belonging that, for many, may go unnoticed. However, the men in these stories are keenly aware of their differences in relationship to the world they inhabit. In the opening story, “The Good News Is,” a man works to find the good news in the life that he has settled for until a welcomed
weight loss leads to a scary diagnosis, and a desire for more. “The Woman in The Chinese Hat” intrigues with the inner monologue of a young man who knows something in his life needs to change, which leads him to an unexpected encounter and the fear that follows in uncertainty. In “Local Hero,” you’ll find a character who feels so Walter Mosley
small in comparison to a cousin he calls “a blazing star among the assorted lumps of clay.” In “Breath,” the reader is plunged into a character’s deep fear and desperation as a man struggles to fill his lungs and his life with air before it is too late. Characters with memorable names have always been a penchant of Mosley’s and in this offering, the names are often as uncommon as the characters that hold them. He also wants readers to examine the names they call themselves. In both “Local Hero,” and more directly in “Unlikely Conversations,” Mosley pushed back against the term “African American” because “Africa is a continent, not a country, not even one race.” He added, “Parlance doesn’t make the word right.” Mosley has published more than 60 critically acclaimed books. In this collection, he not only examines the singular lives of 17 Black men, but he also moves readers to examine themselves. He pushes us to go beyond the awkward by considering the complexities of humanity that speak to every man’s need for compassion. Mosley was recently named the first Black man to ever be awarded the National Book Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award, which will be presented to him by Edwidge Danticat in November.
Yolande Clark-Jackson is a nonfiction writer and adjunct professor at Florida Memorial University. You can find her words in The Write Life, Mayvenn.com, and Sisters Newsletter. n
