I enjoyed Walter Mosley’s novel, there can be no doubt he is one of the finest American writers actively working today, though I wonder if he reached all the way to the very high bar he set for himself with Fortunate Son. The craft of the book is impeccable, the story nearly as addictive as the more conventionally fortunate of the two main characters.
Mosley claims the book is an exploration of the true meaning of fortune, seen through the lives of two boys, self-proclaimed brothers. This is my only criticism, that in this exploration the author uses too many artifacts, people or events too close to ideal to happen in the real world.
Still, I couldn’t read Son fast enough. Two boys are born around the same time; one’s father runs when he finds out his girl is pregnant while the other’s mother dies in childbirth. The first is born sick, kept isolated in a bubble for the first six months at the hospital where the other’s dad is a heart surgeon. The parents meet and fall in love, sort of, and she and her boy move into the the doctor’s home in Beverly Hills.
Tommy and his mom are black while Eric and the doctor are white. Things are fine, for a few years, though Tommy is often sick or injured while Eric is healthy and a burgeoning athlete, and the boys are close as twins. The mom dies suddenly, in her sleep, and Tommy’s real father demands the child despite not really wanting him nor having the means to care for him. Tommy’s life falls apart while Eric’s shines. One becomes homeless and jailed, the other a golden boy who can have any girl–or woman–he wants.
Heartbreaking, thrilling, simply awesome.
recommended
BillSaysThis 