An Eye for an Eye
By MARILYN STASIO
Published: November 19, 2010
Whatever the weaknesses of their free-form plots, Walter Mosley’s crime novels are redeemed by the earthy vitality of his characters: an exuberant pageant of fast-talking rogues and unrepentant sinners, high-stepping women, sharp young blades and children wise beyond their years. Meanwhile, on the sidelines, are his philosophical old souls, shaking their heads and laughing at the parade of fools.
The character study at the heart of THE LAST DAYS OF PTOLEMY GREY (Riverhead, $25.95) is a tour de force. Narrated in an intimate whisper, the story draws us deep into the mind of an old man wandering through the remnants of his memories, searching for the key to an old mystery. Physically fragile and mentally lost, 91-year-old Ptolemy Grey lives alone in shocking squalor, dependent on his great-grandnephew Reggie for the basic necessities of life. Ptolemy is still capable of holding a conversation — but mostly with people from long ago, like Coy McCann, the charismatic friend and mentor who entrusted the young Ptolemy with a stolen fortune and the mission to “take that treasure and make a difference for poor black folks.”
When Reggie is killed in a drive-by shooting, his caregiver duties are assumed by 17-year-old Robyn Small, a “wild and violent” but “sweet and loving” family friend who cleans and fumigates Ptolemy’s pestilential apartment and takes him to a clinic where the old man’s dementia is temporarily reversed with a miraculous but toxic experimental drug: “It seemed to him that he had died and was resurrected 20 years later in an old man’s body, but with the sly mind of a fox or a coyote.” His wits restored, Ptolemy takes action, in the short time he has left to live, to unearth Coy’s lost “pirate’s treasure,” avenge Reggie’s murder and ensure the future well-being of his family.
The tale of an aged superhero who performs valiant deeds with the aid of a devoted young sidekick (pointedly named Robyn) may sound like the charming stuff of myth. But Mosley invests his wish-fulfillment fantasy with deeper meaning and higher purpose. While Ptolemy’s early ramblings are the sad songs of one lost mind, the memories he recovers, including barbaric acts he observed as the son of a Southern sharecropper, are the modern history of his people. In his efforts to sweeten the lives of those he loves, Ptolemy is a true folk hero.
