MR. KOJO NNAMDINo one evokes the underside of a city and its characters quite like a crime novelist. And in Walter Mosley's latest book, New York shines in all its grit and glory. There's the poetry-spouting conman named Sweet Lemon Charles who we first meet hanging around the port authority bus station. And the intimate conversation between lovers that takes place on a street corner a few feet from a crazy woman who's screaming obscenities. And as with all of Walter Mosley's novels, from his Easy Rawlins series set in L.A. to his current Leonid McGill stories, there's the honorable, yet flawed hero caught up in dangerous dealings.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIJoining us to discuss all of this and the writing life is Walter Mosley. He is the author of more than two dozen books including at least two best selling crime series. He also writes short fiction, nonfiction and drama for the stage and screen. He is the winner of numerous awards including an O. Henry Award and PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award. Walter Mosley joins us from NPR's midtown studio in New York. Walter Mosley, welcome.

MR. WALTER MOSLEYHey, Kojo, how you doing?

NNAMDII've been doing well. Good to talk to you. New York is your hometown now. And your latest novel the next in the Leonid McGill series is set there. For those who are not familiar with the series, Leonid McGill is an African American private eye in modern day New York. He's married, three kids, an open marriage, oh, and a not-so-squeaky-clean reputation. He used connections to get access to police records and frame people. In this novel, we find out he framed a woman named Zella Grisham.

NNAMDIWalter, this character has done some questionable things in his time including, as I mentioned, tampering with police records and evidence. Yet in this latest book he seems to be feeling the need to make things right. What's going on with Leonid McGill?

MOSLEYWell, some years ago, maybe five or six years ago, a woman hired him. But in hiring him, what she did was basically set up her own murder and tried to get him framed for that murder. It turns out that 20 years before, that he had framed her father, got him sent to prison and he was killed in prison. And she was, you know, trying to, you know, turn that around on him. She failed, but he realized from her action that he really has been doing the wrong thing his whole life. And now he's trying to be a better man.

MOSLEYAnd so in this most recent novel, it's just another moment in him trying to recover the humanity that he's lost.

NNAMDII know there's a section of the book that I'm going to ask you to read later on that you like to read yourself. But there's one that I'd like you to read because at one point in this novel, Leonid says, I am a 21st century New Yorker. And that, for me, distinguishes him from characters like -- that you had before. And he says, I therefore have little time to contemplate race. Like Easy Rawlins, your hero is still a black private eye. But race in this time and place is different, isn't it?

MOSLEYYes, absolutely.

NNAMDIWell, so can you please read from page 316 in the words of, well, Walter Mosley, but Leonid McGill?

MOSLEYNo. The words of Leonid McGill, not me.

NNAMDIOkay.

MOSLEY"There was electricity coming from an Antoinette side of our face-to-face. I could tell by the way she looked at me that I had passed some kind of unconscious test that her Id gave every black man. I'm a 21st century New Yorker and therefore have little time -- It's not that racism doesn't exist. Lots of people in New York and elsewhere hate because of color and gender, religion and national origin. It's just that I rarely worry about those things because there's a real world underneath all that nonsense, a world that demands my attention almost every moment of every day.

MOSLEYRacism is a luxury in a world where resources are scarce, where economic competition is an armed sport in a world where even the atmosphere is plotting against you. In an arena like that, racism is more like halftime entertainment, a favorite sitcom when the day is done. That said, Antoinette was one of the racists. She hated her own people because they didn't see her for what she was. She felt betrayed by a black man and then I came along. I brought out a thrill in her heart and maybe her other regions there was -- that was all good and well. She was handsome, brave and intelligent. But I was preoccupied with being so profound that I could barely tell if it was mine alone."

NNAMDIRace was much more -- Walter Mosley reading from his latest novel "All I Did Was Shoot My Man" -- race was much more of an issue in your first series. Many of us recall Easy Rawlins, the hero of "Devil in a Blue Dress" in that series was a World War II veteran, as your own father was. How did that shape his experience of being black as opposed to Leonid McGill?

MOSLEYWell, you see, in Easy's world and Fearless' World and other characters that I write about in the 20th century, they knew what was going to happen before they walked into a room. They knew what the police were thinking. They knew what the white women walking down the street were thinking, and the white men walking with them. They knew how people were going to respond to them. They knew everything that was going to happen because race was so structured, so codified in the American psyche.

MOSLEYIn the 21st century, it's not that that's over, but every time you walk into a room, you have a different response. You have a world where people's heroes are hip-hop people and Michael Jackson. You have streets where African princes and Arabian princes are walking up and down the street. You have a world where there had been made so many different kinds of minorities and ways of thinking like minorities that to be black alone can't really define you. And so Leonid has -- every time he walks into a room, he has to define himself according to that room, where Easy didn't have to worry about that.

NNAMDISee, you're doing it again. Your novels are often described as insightful and your characters are something close to philosophers. As I said, you're doing it again because what you're doing is within the context of talking about a novel, you're talking about life today, how it has changed from the 20th through the 21st century. And, as I said, your characters are always something close to philosophers. Why is that? Where does that come from?

MOSLEYWell, I think that -- I mean, I don't know. I would just say thinkers. I mean, you think about the world that you live in rather than it's something removed 'cause philosophy is removed. You know, this is something that somebody does in a room where there are no consequences. But there's a thinker in the world and the thinker has to worry about things.

MOSLEYIt's like when -- what I say to people, you know, to put it down into normal everyday language, a young man walks up to me in Detroit and says -- in the 20th century and says -- and I ask him, I say, how's it going? And he says, well, it's hard on a black man in Detroit. And I say, I understand what you're talking about. Now, in the 21st century, I go to Detroit. I see another young black man. I say, how's it going? He says, well, you know it's hard on a black man in Detroit. And I say, I understand exactly what you're talking about. But then I have to add, I said, but you know, there's somebody in Qandahar would do an apartment swap with either one of us.

MOSLEYSo it's a new world. It's just a new world. It's not necessarily a philosophy, but it's a world that we have to be aware of because the world is changing. And as the world changes, our place in that world changes without saying, you know, I'm not post black. I'm not like that there's no race. But I do think that the world that we live in demands a different frame of reference and a different prescription on your glasses to see that world.

NNAMDIIf you'd like to join the conversation with Walter Mosley, call us at 800-433-8850. Send us a Tweet at kojoshow. Email to kojoshow@wamu.org or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org, ask him a question or make a comment there. We're talking with Walter Mosley, as we mentioned earlier. His latest novel is called "All I Did Was Shoot My Man." I mentioned earlier that there's a passage of the book that you have selected to read. Would you contextualize that for us and then please read it?

MOSLEYWell, now, I just wanted to read from the beginning of the book because, you know, I, I...

NNAMDIOh, I like that, too, yeah.

MOSLEY...that it's a place that -- so I just was, you know, going to read a page or so from the very beginning just to get a sense of what Leonid is going through.

NNAMDII think our listeners pretty much know that you can do anything you want to do when you come on this broadcast so just go ahead.

MOSLEY"I'd been running a low-grade fever for nearly a week. It wasn't debilitating. More like consciousness altering. My senses were affected. Sometimes the world looked fuzzy and at other times sounds became muffled, then intense. I could feel myself moving through the heavy atmosphere with the full weight of my 183 pounds pressing down on the soles of my feet. Aspirin usually dispelled these symptoms but I'd left the little plastic box on my desk and couldn't leave the urine-smelling corner I was in because I was there to meet a client of sorts.

MOSLEYThe lower level of the Port Authority bus station at 42nd Street was populated by young hopefuls on the way to colleges and new lovers on the way to life, mixed in with the optimists were also (word?) headed anywhere but where they found themselves. Sprinkled in among the civilians were crack heads along with various policemen, port authority employees and freelance crooks.

MOSLEYA middle-aged man wearing horn-rimmed glasses and toting a clipboard was standing outside the woman's restroom asking the ladies as they came out if they had any complaints about the facilities. Some were polite, others ignored him and still others stopped to chat about the leaks and smells and the quality or lack of paper products. The bus was five minutes late but there weren't many of us there waiting. Other then myself there were three older women and a younger one. All of us were black, but that needn't have been the case.

MOSLEYTwo young men, one black and the other white started making up rhymes to an imagined beat as they leaned against the red lacquered tile wall across the way. The plain-looking black woman who was waiting for the same bus I was slow glances at them. The rhyming young men were dirty, probably high and likely homeless, but they were singing and moving to an imagined beat that men have been keeping alive in their breasts longer than there were any buildings or buses or prisons."

NNAMDIWalter Mosley reading from his latest novel "All I Did Was Shoot My Man." 800-433-8850 is the number to call. Do you have questions for Walter Mosley about his novels, about the writing life or anything else? Are you a fan of Easy Rawlins or the Leonid McGill crime novels? 800-433-8850. I'm glad you started at the first part of the book when you talk about the fever that Leonid McGill is running. He's running a fever throughout this novel. In fact, he's kind of not in his right mind throughout the book. Is that a metaphor for his overall moral crisis? What did you want to evoke with his illness?

MOSLEYYou know, I think it is. I think that -- I think it is. And I tell you I have to say that I think it is because it wasn't intentional. I just started off he had a fever. I really don't know why. I -- honestly, you know, my whole approach to writing is I start writing and things come out and I just work with it. If I didn't like the fever, I would've edited it out or dropped it somewhere along the way. But instead, I kept it going, you know.

MOSLEYHe's suffering, as many people are suffering in America, from a kind of infection. It's like we're having a low-grade infection in our economy, in our democracy, in our sex relations. We're having a lot of trouble in America. And we keep on functioning as if everything is fine, as if we're healthy, as if everything is going to be okay. But it's not. And at some point, we have to stop and look at what's going on and try to heal ourselves before we can actually get to any kind of resolution.

NNAMDISo that even though you did not necessarily mean the fever as a metaphor for all of that, it certainly came out that way. It's a crime novel, but Leonid's personal and family issues are a big part of his life, including a father who he thought was dead. And did you know from the beginning that you wanted to bring his father back into life, or did that just kind of happen?

MOSLEYThat's actually one thing I did know in this book.

NNAMDIOkay.

MOSLEYYou know, actually, I had known in maybe ever since the end of the first book that, you know, Leonid believes his father is dead from the age of 12. Now he's in his mid-50s, and all of a sudden -- in the last book. he realized that his father probably was alive, and in this one, he is kind of half-heartedly looking for him, but, you know, Leonid is so good that even half-hearted works.

MOSLEYAnd I think it's an important thing, you know, like, you know, what somebody's father means to them, what he's learned, who he is.

NNAMDIAnd in this case, it's particularly important, because for people who are not familiar with the series and say, and African-American man with the name Leonid, his father had a lot to do with that.

MOSLEYWell, his father actually -- the way I explain him is he's always thought he was a Communist. Indeed, he was an Anarchist, but he thought he was Communist, and because he thought he was Communist, he started giving his kids -- well, first he gave himself a Russian name, it was like a name. It wasn't a Communist name. He called himself Tolstoy.

NNAMDIYep.

MOSLEYBut later on he got better at it, so he has, you know, Leonid and Akita who are his sons. And he went off to fight the Revolution in South America, and that's where Leonid thought he died, and Leonid's mother thought he died too, and died of a broken heart only months after he left. So Leonid's been on his own ever since the age of 12, living a hard scrabble life on the streets of New York. His brother's in prison for, you know, robbing an armored car.

MOSLEYAnd so in many ways, he hates his father for killing his mother, for destroying him and his brother's life. But of course, his whole life has been defined by what his father taught him when he was a child.

NNAMDIGot to take a short break. When we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Walter Mosley. His latest novel is called "All I Did Was Shoot My Man." We're taking your calls at 800-433-8850, or you can send email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. Walter Mosley joins us from studios in New York. He's the author of more than two dozen books, including at least two best-selling crime series. He also writes short fiction, non-fiction, and drama for the stage and screen. His latest Leonid McGill novel is called "All I Did Was Shoot My Man," and I know a lot people want to talk to Walter about the writing process.

NNAMDII know that you might be the only writer whose books I read before I interview you, and then after I interview you, I read them again, because I have new insights after talking to you. So I think starting with Andy in Washington D.C., we'll talk about process. Andy, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

ANDYHi. Thank you, and good speaking to you, Mr. Mosley. Big fan of his and love his books. I wanted to ask about process, but I got to tell you, I hope if you ever get a chance to do the "Man in the Basement," I would love to see that as a movie. That whole concept just blows my mind.

NNAMDIYeah. I didn't sleep for days after that one. But go ahead.

ANDYBut you wrote a little short book on writing and everything you know about how to be a writer, and it's a wonderful little book. I guess to people it's not a story, it's just information that you was passing on. I want to ask you for the process, you talked about how many times you have to edit perhaps something to get it right. When do you know to let it go? When is it right when you -- I mean, is there a feeling that you know when just -- because I write, but I hold onto it and then I see something else and...

MOSLEYYeah. Well, let me -- I'll answer that question. And let me tell you, also right now I'm in negotiations with Anthony Mackie to make the film, "The Man in My Basement." We're working on it very hard and I think that -- I think we're probably gonna do it. It's gonna be a low budget movie, so I think that we're probably gonna get that made, that's gonna be fun, sometime next year.

NNAMDIGreat.

MOSLEYThe idea about how many times to rewrite is very simple. You rewrite, you know, you have to understand, it's never going to be perfect. What you write is never going to be completely satisfactory. It's never gonna work exactly right, but there comes a time when no matter what you do rewriting it doesn't get any better. You rewrite and it's the same, and you rewrite and it's the same, and you rewrite and it's the same. That's when you're finished, when you can't make it any better.

NNAMDIAndy, thank you very much for your call. You talked about "The Man in the Basement" probably coming to the movies, most of us know your first novel "Devil in a Blue Dress" featuring Easy Rawlins, and the movie based on it, but it's also my understanding that there's a television series in production based on that novel, and on based on your latest novel. Can you tell us about that?

MOSLEYWell, yeah. There's not -- well, not actually the latest novel, but HBO and I have been working for a while to try to do a series based -- starting with the first Leonid McGill called "The Long Fall."

NNAMDIMm-hmm.

MOSLEYAnd we've gotten pretty far with that. I've outlined actually the whole season, the whole first season, so now I have to go out there next week and discuss the outline with them and see what they like and what they don't like and how we're gonna move forward with that. At the same time, a fellow writer Cheo Hodari Coker and I have written a pilot under the auspices of the John Wells Company that did "ER" and "West Wing," and we've presented that to NBC.

MOSLEYNBC is very interested in it, but of course a thing like that is very scary, you know. You're gonna do a black show that's not funny, that's period. That's hard. I think it'll work, and they haven't said no yet, so maybe they think it'll work too. So we're pushing ahead on those two fronts. At the same time, I've actually written a screenplay based on "Little Scarlet," the Easy Rawlins novel that happens five days after the Watts Riots, and I'd really love to do that, but we'll see.

MOSLEYYou know, I'm just, you know, there are a lot of things going on, you know. You know, once one door opens they all open, you know. It's like you go, oh, my God, there's like six open doors, what do I do, you know. But it's been a lot of fun.

NNAMDIGot an email from Barbara in D.C. "Reading your novels is one of my favorite things to do. Thank you for all the great characters, Fearless Jones, Socrates, Talomie, Jackson Blue. About two years ago, I heard you speak at the Folger, and you said you no longer wanted to talk about Easy, but really, can't we at least know if he's alive or dead?"

MOSLEYWell, you know, I did say that, but, you know, I did. But I just recently signed a contract to write a new Easy Rawlins novel, you know, for...

NNAMDIYes.

MOSLEY...for Doubleday, so it's gonna be called "Little Green," and it's gonna come out next year. So you will find out what happened because it's after the debacle of the last novel, so you'll see what happened.

NNAMDIThe Easy Rawlins series were set in L.A. were you grew up, and your current novel, like the other Leonid McGill stories is set in your current hometown, New York City. How important is a sense of place for you?

MOSLEYI don't know. You know, because you have to understand, I've been living in New York for 30 years...

NNAMDIYeah.

MOSLEY...and so I started writing the Easy Rawlins novels in New York, not in L.A. So that's one thing. So I have a sense of L.A., but I haven't lived there since 1973. I mean, I've visited, but I haven't lived there. I think that a sense of place is interesting, but, you know, I write novels about the far future. I mean, I write all kinds of novels...

NNAMDIThat's true.

MOSLEY...and so, I've written one about slavery in Atlanta in the 1830s, and, you know, really, I can tell you I was never enslaved -- not in Atlanta, in Georgia in the 1830s. And it's like I was never there, but a sense of place -- if you -- if you sit in any one place long enough, you understand 99 percent of the human experience over the last 10,000 years, and all you have to do is put that in the right order and you can make a place.

NNAMDISpeaking of place, here's Jim in McLean, Va. Jim, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JIMWell, thanks. I haven't read any of Mr. Mosley's books yet, but I'm fascinated by the discussion. Sense of place is what George Pelecanos' stories in D.C. tend to be all about, and I'm wondering...

MOSLEYYes.

ANDY...if you've ever read any of his, and can compare your writing to his in the detective genre.

MOSLEYI have read his books and he's a wonderful writer, and I'm not about to compare us.

NNAMDII agree with that completely, but yes, George Pelecanos' novels are highly regarded in part because of the sense of place that they create, because he goes into neighborhoods in D.C., and most of novels that are written about Washington are written about federal Washington and not about neighborhoods in Washington D.C., and Pelecanos does investigate if you will the neighborhoods.

NNAMDIYou had a somewhat unusual family growing up in L.A. with a Jewish mother and African-American father. How would you say your writing reflects the influence of your parents?

MOSLEYYou know, it's -- I think it's mostly a very personal experience, you know. This is like Leonid talking about race, and it's an interesting thing. When a black man looks in the mirror and sees his face, he doesn't say, look at that black man in the mirror. He says, look at me. I'm -- my name is George or Tom, you know, and he sees his history in his face, and the aging in his face, and that kind of stuff. I learned a lot from my parents, some of it is cultural.

MOSLEYA lot of it is cross-cultural because, you know, the Jewish experience in Europe at the beginning of the 20th Century, and at the end of the 19th Century, and the black experience at the same time in America are very similar. And so a lot of what I learned is how much people are alike, which is very much my thing of sense of place, that places are alike, people are alike. We try to make ourselves different. We try to say that, you know, everything is different, you know, but we find in the end that we can't.

MOSLEYLike a lot of times I'll hear a guy say, well, you know what black men think, and then he says something that I don't think and I'm going, well, like I wonder, you know. Or somebody says, well, you know what women feel, and then she says something and a woman will say, I don't feel like that. I wonder what she's talking about. You know, but it's an idea that, yes, of course I'm deeply affected by race and racism. Of course, blacks and Jews are deeply affected by race and racism and have very different responses to it.

MOSLEYAnd I -- and so that's a truism, but my parents themselves were very unique, very different kinds of people, and to explain what -- that influence on me would be very difficult.

NNAMDIOnto Maria in Washington D.C. Maria, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

MARIAHi, good afternoon to you and Mr. Mosley. I love your novels. I have two questions for you. What did you do prior to writing, and what can you recommend for an aspiring, budding writer such as myself? I've never written anything other than I have notebooks full of scraps of papers, stories, but I just can't seem to put them together or, you know, I've gone on the Internet looking for information, but you don't how legitimate the resources and sources are that you -- so what can you recommend? Kojo, love your show, and I'll take the answers offline. Thank you.

NNAMDIMaria, thank you for your call. Walter?

MOSLEYWell, the first one -- actually, they're both very simple answer for me. The first one is, I was a computer programmer before I was a writer.

NNAMDIAnd I had an….

MOSLEYFor sixteen years.

NNAMDII had an a-ha moment in that life of Walter Mosley's, because he told me that he worked with a woman from Guyana named Barbara Roberts when he was computer, and I said, oh, that's my cousin. When I told her, she said, that nut is writing novels now? But that's another story.

MOSLEYYes. Barbara is very wonderful.

NNAMDIYeah.

MOSLEYSo that's easy. I was a computer programmer for many years and, you know, it was fine. I'm glad I don't do it anymore. And I wrote -- and one of the earlier callers mentioned a book that I wrote, but he didn't give the right title, and I'll give you the right title. "This Year You Write Your Novel." It's 100 pages, they're really tiny little pages, it's everything I know about writing novels. Get that book, read that book, and you will know everything I think at least. Hopefully you'll know enough to write a novel too.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call. Onto Fred in Washington, D.C. Fred, your turn.

FREDThank you, Kojo, and Mr. Mosley, I'm a huge fan, and glad to hear that Easy Rawlins will be coming back, hopefully both on TV and in a novel. One of the things that I appreciate most about your writing is the way you describe your characters. Some of the phrases that you use to describe how they dress, how they look, stick with me for years after reading your books, and I just wondered how is it you go about doing that? It's just amazing to me. I think it's one of the best things about reading your novels.

MOSLEYHmm. Well, you know, there is an answer to that question, but it's not a very satisfying answer. I believe that all art is about 90 percent unconscious, and that the hardest thing to do is let go of that part of your mind that wants to control things consciously. I wake up every day and I write for three hours. It's just like being in psychoanalysis. I do it every day. Seven days a week, I wake up and I write for three hours.

MOSLEYAfter three hours, I stop. I wake up the next day and all these new things are in my mind, and these new elements of the voice that I'm writing in is in my mind, and I'm able to come up with things. After a while, I don't become the character, but the voice that I'm writing in is that character. That character comes from a whole wealth of unconscious stuff that I have no idea is there. And so people come up and say, how did you do it? I go, well, I'm not really sure how I did that, you know, but I know I did.

NNAMDIFred, we did put a link to "This Year You Write Your Novel" at our website at kojoshow.org so you can find it there. Thank you very much for your call. I'd like you to connect two statements that you've made, Walter Mosley. You've said that the older you are, the more you live in the past, and you have an interesting take on young people and what older people can learn from them. Talk about that.

MOSLEYWell, those two things are connected. I mean, deeply connected. The older we are, the more we live in the past. I mean, the older you are, the more your memories and impressions that you've accumulated over your life fill up your mind, and a lot of these things are wrong, you know. A lot of things that people knew 30 years ago and lived by are no longer true, and -- but it's hard to let it go, and it's hard even to know it because, you know, you've lived, you've done well, maybe you've been successful, you have, you know, developed friends and a life, and maybe skills and an art, and so you believe, hey, well, you know, I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm talking about because I've done this.

MOSLEYBut young people live in the world today, and that's all they live in, because that's all they know, because they don't really have a past to clutter up their minds with. And even though they're not as articulate, they're not as experienced, they're not as skilled, they actually know the world we're living in much better than people who are older, you know, me, who just turned 60 about a week ago, many people who are old and, you know, they just think that they know. And, you know, and I watch all the time. I say, man, how do you know?

MOSLEYYou're saying stuff that was true when we were kids, but, you know, that's over now. Just ask the young people in the street. They'll tell you what living life is like. It's like people, you know, criticizing hip-hop. I mean, there's reasons to criticize hip-hop, of course, they're the same reasons you criticize the blues, but on another level, these people, they're seeing the life that they live and they're talking about that life, and we're saying, that's wrong to say that.

MOSLEYIt's not wrong to say it, because it's true, you know. Maybe you don't like the interpretation, but the basic knowledge is real and it's the stuff that we have to deal with.

NNAMDIAnd I'm afraid that's all the time we have. Walter Mosley, thank you so much for joining us.

MOSLEYIt was great to talk to you, Kojo. I'm glad we got to get together.

NNAMDIWalter Mosley is the author of more than two dozen books. His latest novel is called "All I Did Was Shoot My Man." Thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.