From the Publisher
Praise for Touched and Walter Mosley:
“An expansive dystopian fantasy that is equally sexy and incisive.” – Entertainment Weekly
“Like a Black Mirror episode set against the Hollywood Hills.” – Kirkus
“Walter Mosley is best known as one of contemporary literature’s pre-eminent crime novelists, but he’s actually four or five different writers rolled into one… He’s an altogether thornier, more idiosyncratic writer than readers may know, an inveterate investigator and chronicler of his own heart, mind and soul.” —New York Times
The prolific Mosley delights in the wonderfully bizarre… He unfurls into greater and frankly breathtaking complexity.”—New York Times on The Awkward Black Man
“[Near] the recent work of Julian Barnes and Roddy Doyle.”—Wall Street Journal on The Awkward Black Man
“We see [Mosley] as a chronicler of Black life in America.”—Washington Post on The Awkward Black Man
“Tinged with sardonic humor and acerbic observations, many echoing the pained, bristling voices of Ralph Ellison and James Baldwin.”—New Yorker on The Awkward Black Man
Kirkus Reviews
2023-07-13
An unsuspecting host finds himself at the center of a supernatural plot to eradicate life from the planet.
Rattled awake from a disorienting slumber—and apparently unaware of his own nudity and physical arousal—mild-mannered Black family man Marty Just wanders onto his balcony, the elaborate details of an intergalactic plan to end life on Earth seared into his mind. “Mama, look!” a neighbor child cries, and from that moment, Marty's week only gets weirder: He's arrested for public indecency; kills his vile, racist cellmate in a fugue state of self-defense; posts bail and returns home, only to encounter Aryan gang members ready to avenge their murdered leader. Until this point, the question of whether Marty has suffered a psychotic break or schizophrenic episode is unresolved, but then something inside Marty—an entity called Temple—takes over, attacking the racist thugs with his teeth, biting and tearing the life out of them in a marvelously frenzied action sequence. As it turns out, not only can Temple summon inhuman strength, he can resurrect the dead (!), and he recruits the formerly lifeless racists to help him prevent the encroaching genocide, personified by Tor Waxman, the Angel of Death. Equal parts body horror and necromancy, the book has cinematic fast cuts and an explosive pace that make it read like a Black Mirror episode set against the Hollywood Hills. While a subplot about Marty's pending legal woes adds little to the excitement (it wouldn't be Mosley without sharp-tongued lawyers and pushy cops), the novel is complicated in compelling ways by the racial dynamics and overt gestures toward a pandemic, as Tor Waxman spreads feverish death via unseen contagion to nearly 5,000 souls.
Fast-moving action and jaw-dropping twists move this slim volume along at a dizzying rate.
