I've long admired Walter Mosley's "Easy Rawlins" series of books and I've enjoyed his non-Rawlins books almost as much. The fact that the man has such a successful track record with me probably explains my surprise and disappointment in Fortunate Son.Surely, Mr. Mosley did not intend for this story to be taken literally because it reads more like a fairy tale, comic book or even an old-time movie serial than it does a serious novel. The characters remain one-dimensional from start to finish and despite all of the unbelievable events that happen in their lives it is difficult to empathize with, or even like, many of them. Instead I only wished I could get my hands on several of the characters long enough to shake some common sense into them.
But of course the good guys come out on top in the end after suffering at the hands of evil doers for most of the book. What else would one expect in a book that more resembles a television soap opera than it does a novel from a writer of Walter Mosley's stature? Fortunate Son was a major disappointment, and I have to think that if it had been written by a less well-known novelist than Mosley the reviews it received would have been a lot less enthusiastic than the ones that Mosley received for it.
Rated at: 1.5
I second that!
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