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Underlying strata makes for a great story
Book Review
By Derryll White
Mosley, Walter (2014), Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore.
“I was no longer able to function as a proxy for other people’s desires.” – Debbie Dare.
This is Walter Mosley’s twelfth Easy Rawlins novel. He put Rawlins off a cliff, drunk and driving, in ‘Blonde Faith.’ It was, presumably, the demise of Mosley’s most universally popular character. Now, seven years later, Easy struggles back, surfacing and sliding back into a coma.
Mosley looks at the adult entertainment film industry (porn for short) in this novel. He certainly lays things out. The reader gets an inside view of a huge commercial undertaking that takes real people, mainly women, commodifies them and chews them up, badly. A few make some money but most are promised everything and given little, except the feeling of being badly used.
Perhaps one of the most wonderful things about reading Walter Mosley is that there are so many underlying strata to his stories. Here there is gritty sex, supported by the compassion one human can feel for another used harshly by the world, supported again by memory and history. His stories are an archaeological pit revealing the strengths and shortcomings of Los Angeles’ black ghetto.
Some of the writing is a little tedious, perhaps trying too hard to capture the vacuous space remaining when a person gives up all hope. But I thought Mosley very strong in mirroring the usurious nature of porn, the way it takes those with little possibility of hope and gives them some material gain while exploiting them for the growing good of the users – the directors and studio owners.
This is not an easy or pretty book. But everyone with a computer knows there is a world of innuendo, hurt and sex just a finger tap away. Mosley uses his art in a socially-conscious way to reveal and to ask his reader to consider that alternate internet reality.
Like much of Walter Mosley’s work ‘Debbie Doesn’t Do It Anymore’ requires some thought. It goes far beyond the world of sleaze and porn to a place that requires the reader to define redemption as a personal trait. I am left asking: “What do I have to do to attain the self-knowledge that will release me from all that binds me?” as Debbie Dare does here. A great story and very good writing!
****
Excerpts from the novel:
MEN – “Theon was a good man. He was a man and so he was always a little lost. Men are like boys and sometimes the only thing we can do is put them to bed.”
THE LIFE – Poor Jolie. She didn’t even have a pay-as-you-go cell phone. Girls like her slept in a different bed each week and washed out their panties by hand every night. Friends came and went one at a time, each one promising something and delivering somewhat less.
Theon had obviously offered here a career in adult films.
PORN REALITY – The money shot was not only my paycheck but the salary of every grip, cameraman, makeup artist and gofer in the room. Our reason for living would spout from Myron Palmer’s big pink dick.
This was no revelation. I had experienced thousands of ejaculations from men of every colour, size, and nationality. I had been spouted upon in Moscow, Kingston, Paris and Johannesburg. This was my job, and the only thing I worried about was keeping the acrid stuff out of my eyes.
HATE – “A lot of people love their hate. They live to hate the people wronged them. You cain’t just have one gang. That don’t even make sense. If you took away the white man’s black man or the black man’s white man, most of ‘em wouldn’t even know how to walk down the street right.”
MORE REALITY – That room was why I’d fucked ten thousand men and women on four continents. Thousands of us boys and girls had run screaming from the same filth and stink of poverty. Black and white and brown and yellow and red had put out their thumbs and pulled down their pants, used lubricants and drugs and alcohol to escape these decaying ancestors and others just like them.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.
Lotus Books is pleased to sponsor book reviews by Derryll White. If you are interested in a book that Derryll has reviewed you can shop online at https://lotusbooks.ca/, call us at 250-426-3415 or please visit us at 33 10th Ave. S. Cranbrook, and we would be happy to help you find a great read.
