 | A WRITER'S WIT |  |
My Book World
Mosley, Walter. The Man in My Basement: A Novel. New York: Little, 2004.
A short but expansive novel with this premise: An odd little White man seeks out a Black man, Charles Blakey, because he has a large basement that is also windowless and contains only one door. Anniston Bennet’s proposition is this: that Charles will lock Anniston up in his basement for a certain amount of time. In return Charles will receive a large sum of money. Charles says no at first, but he reconsiders. Charles has inherited his two-hundred-year-old home, but it is his only asset. He’s never worked hard or steadily, in fact, has been fired from a bank for embezzling a small sum of money—thus being blackballed by the rest of the town. So Charles does agree to house the little man in his basement, basically serving as Bennet’s master. What follows is a much deeper story than what may think in the beginning. To say more would indeed spoil the read about how these two men come to terms with their pasts.
Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Tessa Hadley
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Robert Lowell
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Matt Taibbi
FRI: My Book World | Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth
A short but expansive novel with this premise: An odd little White man seeks out a Black man, Charles Blakey, because he has a large basement that is also windowless and contains only one door. Anniston Bennet’s proposition is this: that Charles will lock Anniston up in his basement for a certain amount of time. In return Charles will receive a large sum of money. Charles says no at first, but he reconsiders. Charles has inherited his two-hundred-year-old home, but it is his only asset. He’s never worked hard or steadily, in fact, has been fired from a bank for embezzling a small sum of money—thus being blackballed by the rest of the town. So Charles does agree to house the little man in his basement, basically serving as Bennet’s master. What follows is a much deeper story than what may think in the beginning. To say more would indeed spoil the read about how these two men come to terms with their pasts.
Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Tessa Hadley
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Robert Lowell
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Matt Taibbi
FRI: My Book World | Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth
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