Short Story Collections

The place is the United States. The time, the near-future, 2020-2040. Here, justice is blind and the ranks of the disenfranchised have swollen to a toxic level. High-tech rules the day while human nature, for better or worse, remains constant. In nine interwoven tales, Mosley paints a keen if fictional portrait of what the future could hold if our own political climate continues. From Ptolemy Bent, the child genius whose act of mercy lands him in the world's first privatized prison, to Fera Jones, a heavy-weight champ who gives up the ring for a political career, characters appear and reappear in different storylines as everyone tries to survive a fast and furious "Futureland".

A masterful collection of stories that showcases one of the country’s most beloved and acclaimed writers—award-winning author, Walter Mosley. Bestselling author Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension, both with his extraordinary fiction and gripping writing for television. The Awkward Black Man collects seventeen of Mosley’s most accomplished short stories to showcase the full range of his remarkable talent. Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories—heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals. In "The Good News Is," a man’s insecurity about his weight gives way to a serious illness and the intense loneliness that accompanies it. Deeply vulnerable, he allows himself to be taken advantage of in return for a little human comfort in a raw display of true need. "Pet Fly," previously published in the New Yorker , follows a man working as a mailroom clerk for a big company—a solitary job for which he is overqualified—and the unforeseen repercussions he endures when he attempts to forge a connection beyond the one he has with the fly buzzing around his apartment. And "Almost Alyce" chronicles failed loves, family loss, alcoholism, and a Zen approach to the art of begging that proves surprisingly effective. Touching and contemplative, each of these unexpected stories offers the best of one of our most gifted writers.