Socrates Fortlow Books

"Mournful, insightful, and mystical...Mosley's best work of fiction." —Elle New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley introduces us to Socrates Fortlow, an "astonishing character" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) in this acclaimed collection of linked stories. "I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there." Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his own two rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts. Working a dead-end job at the supermarket and moving perilously close to invisibility, Socrates seeks inner truth and redemption amid the violence and hopelessness of South Central Los Angeles. In fourteen intertwining tales, Socrates grapples with situations that are never easy as he attempts to hold on to a job and offer a lifeline to a young man on his same bloodstained path. In Socrates's battle-scarred wisdom, there is hope of turning the world around in this "powerful, hard-hitting, unrelenting, poignant short fiction" ( Booklist ).

Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict forced to define his own morality in a lawless world, confronts wrongs that most people would rather ignore and comes face-to-face with the most dangerous emotion: hope. It has been nine years since his release from prison, and he still makes his home in a two-room shack in a Watts alley. But he has a girlfriend now, a steady job, and he is even caring for a pet, the two-legged dog he calls Killer. These responsibilities make finding the right path even harder - especially when the police make Socrates their first suspect in every crime within six blocks.--BOOK JACKET. "In each chapter of Walkin' the Dog, Socrates challenges a different conundrum of modern life. In "Blue Lightning, " he is offered a better-paying job but has to consider whether the extra pay is worth the freedom he would have to give up. In "Promise, " he keeps a vow made long ago to a dying friend, and learns that a promise to one person can mean damage to another. In "Mookie Kid, " he gets a telephone and,learns that the price of being able to reach others is that others can contact him - whether he wants to be reached or not."--BOOK JACKET. "Walkin' the Dog builds to a stunning climax as Socrates takes on a rogue cop who has terrorized his neighborhood."--BOOK JACKET.

From New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley, the third collection of Socrates Fortlow tales, "a thought-provoking exploration of wickedness—and what's to be done about it" ( Seattle Times ). Living in south central L.A., Socrates Fortlow is a sixty-year-old ex-convict still strong enough to kill men with his bare hands. Filled with profound guilt about his own crimes and disheartened by the chaos of the streets, Socrates calls together local people of all races and social stations and begins to conduct a Thinkers' Club, where all can discuss life's unanswerable questions. Infiltrated by undercover cops and threatened by strain from within, the Thinkers' Club doesn’t have it easy. But simply by debating racial authenticity, street justice, and the possibility of mutual understanding, Socrates and his unlikely crew actually begin to make a difference. The Right Mistake is Walter Mosley at his most incisive. In turns outraged and affectionate, it offers a profoundly literary and ultimately redemptive exploration of the possibility of moral action in a violent world.