Born in Los Angeles in 1952, Walter Mosley is one of the central voices in contemporary American fiction. The author of over sixty books, translated into numerous languages, he has explored noir, historical fiction, science fiction, and social realism, never considering the genre as a barrier, but rather as a tool for approaching the truth.
From the Easy Rawlins series—which redefined African-American crime fiction—to his more overtly philosophical and experimental novels, Mosley has constructed a coherent body of work that explores America’s contradictions, its racial, social, and moral fractures. In Walter Mosley’s noir, there is never a true return to order.
Rather, there’s a slow and laborious acknowledgement: of one’s own faults, of one’s own omissions, of the part of the world each of us helps to keep standing even when we wish to escape. Known to Evil, published in Italy by 21lettere (translation by Stefano Ternavasio), fits perfectly into this trajectory: not as a simple episode in a series, but as a further step in a broader reflection on the relationship between identity, memory, and moral responsibility.
Leonid McGill, a New York private investigator, belongs to this same constellation of characters marked not so much by the conflict between good and evil, but by the awareness of having already crossed certain boundaries. He is not a man seeking redemption nor a tragic hero disguised as a detective, but someone who knows he is “known by evil” and must live with this knowledge every day, without excuses or consolations. In this sense, the novel examines less the mechanism of the crime than its long-lasting effects: what remains afterward, what continues to weigh heavily when the investigation is over and life—as always—goes on.
1.You’ve written across noir, historical fiction, science fiction, and social realism. When you begin a new book today, what tells you which form or genre is the right one for the story you want to tell?
W.M.: That’s a hard question to answer because many books that I write come from different urges. For instance, one day I was thinking about faith and spirituality. I was aware that I am not a very spiritual person. I don’t think about heaven or hell, sin is not an absolute to my mind, and I never go to church. But I do believe in the soul, because I feel like I have a soul, a unique identity that cannot be duplicated or recreated. It does not feel to me like the subject of any science I know of.
This thought in mind I wanted to write a book about the soul. It wouldn’t be a mystery. What would I write? About some guy wanting the P.I. to go out and find his soul? No. I came up with the idea to write a book ultimately called Blue Light. Therein I postulated the life on Earth is less than half its potential. That there are beings who left the base part of organic life here to develop until much later when another member of this alien race bombards the planet with shards of Blue Light that will transform awareness to a place where we could actually locate the Divine within ourselves.
2. After more than forty years of writing and publishing, what still excites you about sitting down to write—and what, if anything, feels harder now than it used to?
W.M.: The answer to this question is in the asking. I love to write. Writing transports me to a place where I can create something that other people, readers, can recreate in their consciousness. It’s as if we were playing in a place that belongs to all of us and still is never the same thing.
3. The original title, Known to Evil, suggests a man who’s already been labeled, already judged by his past. The Italian title, The Evil Is in the Family, shifts the emphasis toward inheritance and transmission. Which idea comes closer to what you intended: evil as reputation, or evil as something that moves through families and relationships?
W.M.: I’m not sure which would be a better title, nor if there is yet a better title in the story’s future. I can say that Leonid McGill has all the qualifications of being an investigator in the underbelly of American culture. He is perfect for this job because he is known to evil and is the perfect person to interrogate and then investigate what has gone wrong.
4. Leonid McGill isn’t wrestling with temptation—he’s wrestling with memory. He already knows what he’s capable of, and so does the world around him. Was it important to you that Known to Evil start from moral consequences rather than moral decisions?
W.M.: To rephrase, Leonid does not live in a world of absolutes. Good and evil are served on the same plate and he has to work with both in order to do the best he can.
5. You’ve often said that genre isn’t a container for truth, but a way of getting closer to it. In Known to Evil, the mystery frequently feels less central than guilt, responsibility, and fatigue. Do you still see this as a detective novel, or more as a moral novel that happens to operate inside crime?
W.M.: Any good detective novel is a morality play. Leonid, for instance, has spent nearly his entire life doing the wrong thing. It is only lately that he is trying to swim against the current and do what’s right. He knows that he will never achieve the goal of innocence but he also knows that he has to try.
6. Many readers point out that the plot of Known to Evil is intentionally crowded, even unwieldy, while individual scenes are extremely sharp. Is that narrative excess your way of pushing back against the false sense of order classic whodunits tend to promise?
W.M.: Life is so complex. Here is a woman who is talking to a child about why he has to do his homework when the phone rings and a bank representative is calling to say the you are four months behind on your mortgage payment. The news talks about mass incarceration in South America and your son’s teacher wants to take you out for dinner, tonight. This is life. Most men have jobs where they are expected to accomplish only a few tasks each day. In life you have to do it all.
7. McGill’s past as a criminal fixer isn’t symbolic—it has hurt real people in real ways. Unlike many noir heroes, he can’t turn his sins into mythology. Were you consciously responding to the tradition of the charmingly corrupt detective?
W.M.: Nothing charming about Leonid. He is Known to evil and cannot escape the glare.
8. Family plays an unusually large role here. McGill’s wife, children, and former lovers aren’t side stories—they’re moral pressure points. Why was it important for you to deny McGill the isolation that classic hard-boiled detectives depend on?
W.M.: Because we have moved past the existential moment in crime fiction. It’s too easy for today’s detective to be so solitary. No permanent house, no dog, no wife, no children, no nothing that can keep the old time detective from doing what’s right, nothing except if he, or she, lacks the courage. If you have a child at home that needs you, well, simple courage is just not enough.
9. Some critics say McGill is almost unnaturally tough—physically and psychologically. Others read that toughness as symbolic rather than realistic. When you write noir, what matters more to you: plausibility, or the weight of moral pressure?
W.M.: Literature is, among other things, poetry. One might say in some sonnet that The sky was an angry lion. The reader knows that this is not something to invest in, rather it is something that is there to reveal the heart of the poem.
10. In the Easy Rawlins books, race is front and center. In Known to Evil, race is still present but deeply entangled with class, money, and institutional power. Was that shift driven more by the New York setting, or by changes in how you see America itself?
W.M.: America has changed somewhat. It’s still racist but not as segregated. People of color have deeply penetrated the job market and culture has become more amalgamated. Therefore Leonid has a broader palette to deal with while Easy is still struggling with naked hatred.
11. McGill himself points out that mystery novels promise closure that real life rarely delivers. In Known to Evil, resolution feels partial and deliberately unsatisfying. Do you think too much narrative closure can sometimes be a lie?W.M.: Closure is always a lie. Life goes on and on, even when you die, even when you say I do or I don’t. Even when you reach the summit of the mountain you are faced with the vastness of eternity.
12. Looking across your work—from Easy Rawlins to Socrates Fortlow to Leonid McGill—it feels like a movement from social injustice, to moral reckoning, to existential weariness. Do you see that arc in your own writing life, or only in hindsight?
W.M.: Thinking about the journey of oppression, mass murder, and a life of disenfranchisement; it feels more like a maze with no exit but plenty of exit signs.
13. By the end of Known to Evil, McGill isn’t chasing redemption or justice—just the chance to do a little less damage tomorrow than he did yesterday. In the world you’re writing about, is that the most honest version of hope left?
W.M.: Yes.
14. To close, if readers come away from Known to Evil with a single lingering thought or unease—something that stays with them after the last page—what would you hope that feeling might be?
W.M.: I can’t answer that question because I have come to understand that readers create the novel every bit as completely as do the writers. The book belongs to each reader and it is up to them to decide what their creation has meant.
On behalf of Contorni di Noir and its many readers across Italy, we would like to thank you once again for your time, your openness, and the generosity of your reflections.
If this conversation represents one of your first interviews with an Italian publication, we consider it a true honor and a source of great pride. Your work has long been followed with passion by Italian noir readers, and the opportunity to engage with you directly means a great deal to a community that has been reading, discussing, and valuing your books for many years. Thank you for sharing your voice with us.
Interview by Andrea Novelli
