The Man in My Basement

by Walter Mosley

This masterpiece by celebrated New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley is the mysterious story of a young Black man who agrees to an unusual bargain to save the home that has belonged to his family for generations.

The man at Charles Blakey's door has a proposition almost too strange for words. The stranger offers him $50,000 in cash to spend the summer in Charles's basement, and Charles cannot even begin to guess why. The beautiful house has been in the Blakey family for generations, but Charles has just lost his job and is behind on his mortgage payments. The money would be welcome. But Charles Blakey is black and Anniston Bennet is white, and it is clear that the stranger wants more than a basement view.

There is something deeper and darker about his request, and Charles does not need any more trouble. But financial necessity leaves him no choice. Once Anniston Bennet is installed in his basement, Charles is cast into a role he never dreamed of. Anniston has some very particular requests for his landlord, and try as he might, Charles cannot avoid being lured into Bennet's strange world. At first he resists, but soon he is tempted -- tempted to understand a set of codes that has always eluded him, tempted by the opportunity to understand the secret ways of white folks.

Charles's summer with a man in his basement turns into an exploration of inconceivable worlds of power and manipulation, and unimagined realms of humanity. Walter Mosley pierces long-hidden veins of justice and morality with startling insight into the deepest mysteries of human nature.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, African American, Audiobook, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Book Club

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Walter Mosley (b. 1952) is the author of the bestselling mystery series featuring Easy Rawlins, as well as numerous other works, from literary fiction and science fiction to a young adult novel and political monographs. His short fiction has been widely published, and his nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine and the Nation, among other publications. Mosley is the winner of numerous awards, including an O. Henry Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, a Grammy, and PEN America’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He lives in New York City.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

My friend Don gave me this book to read several years ago, and it still affects me when I think about it. The story begins with a strange request: a wealthy white man named Bennet asks to rent out the basement of the home of Charles Blakey, who is black. Bennet builds a cage in the basement, and eventually locks himself inside it. Blakey is confused by the man's actions, and after some philosophical discussions, learns that Bennet is trying to atone for something.

I was totally absorbed in the book and loved the discussions about guilt, punishment and redemption. The novel is only 192 pages, but it's very powerful.

I was reminded of this book because Don died last week. It was an unexpected heart attack, despite the fact that he was a runner and was in great shape. Walter Mosley was Don's favorite writer, and because of his enthusiasm, I've read several of Mosley's books. "The Man in my Basement" is my favorite because it is so thoughtful and well-written, and it reminds me of the good conversations I had with my friend. I'd like to think that our friends never really leave us, especially when we have good books to remember them by.

[Baba · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blakely, an unemployed 33-year old Black man, a layabout drunk and failure, has his entire life turned around one summer when a rich white man approaches him, offering him upwards of $40,000 to live in the basement of Blakely's ancestral home! This a thought provoking, compelling and certainly intense suspense filled psychological mystery thriller.. all the genres! Ultimately this was an exploration of power, manipulation, justice, morality and above all the human psyche. A well earned Four Star, 8 out of 12 read.

2012 read

[Vicki Herbert - Vacation until Jan 2 · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Reclamations Man...

THE MAN IN MY BASEMENT: A Novel
by Walter Mosley

4 stars. Charles Blakey lived in an upscale black neighborhood in Sag Harbor where everybody knew everybody...

So...

It was a surprise when Anniston Bennet, a white man, showed up unannounced, asking to rent Blakey's basement that summer...

The generational house was over 200 years old and had its own cemetery out back where the Blakeys were buried...

Trouble was...

Black folks don't rent to white folks in this part of Sag Harbor, so why did Bennet choose the Blakey house?

Blakey had been fired from his job and still hadn't found work. He was a month behind in his mortgage payment and needed money...

Resigned to renting to Bennet...

Blakey began cleaning out the basement. He arranged to meet with an antique dealer who told him he had a treasure trove of black antiquities...

A few days later...

Bennet was installed in the basement for 65 days at thousands of dollars in advance. The entrance to the space was through a trapdoor in the yard...

Bennet had Blakey erect a prison cell down there to imprision Bennet during his stay. Blakey was to prepare all of Bennet's meals...

Bennet was a man who gets what he wants, and Bennet wanted Blakey's basement...

Bennet was a Reclamations man...

Every day he was imprisoned cost him something. His business relations were delicate, and missed calls had consequences...

Later, according to the company rules, he would be held responsible. He'd be dealt with...

One of my favorite genres is noir, and this quirky story is a good example of what this genre has to offer readers.

I was truly guessing up to the end of the story what was going on, and why was this man in the basement?

This was one of the better stories I've read this year. I was sorry to see it end.

[TK421 · Rating 5 out of 5]

In each of us there is a dormant power waiting to be released. For some of us, the power is evil. For others, the power is more closely attuned to charity or love. If your power were to be unleashed upon humankind today, would it be good or evil?

That is the question you have to ask yourself before reading this book. If a person stumbled upon your doorstep and offered you an immense amount of money to imprison them, without giving you a clue as to why they want to be imprisoned in your basement, could you do it? And if you could, why? If you are the type of person that can withstand the allure of money, how would you react to this proposition?

And if you did take the person up on their offer, could you remain the same person you think you are as their story unfolds through conversations and deep self-introspection?

Walter Mosley tries to answer these questions with this novel. Sometimes he succeeds; sometimes he leaves the answers vague and expects you, as the reader, to answer the questions yourself.

Overall, Mosley gets you to look and think about the world through a prism rarely glanced through. If you have the courage and stomach to attack these questions, read this book. If you don't, ask yourself: Why not?

Personal note: This was one of the best books I have read in a very long time.

VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I started this book this morning and finished it a little while ago. Needless to say, I don't give 2 stars to many books that keep my attention throughout the whole day, but when a character just doesn't seem 'right', it really gets to me. What I mean is, believe-ability:

*Say you have no job, that you have no ambition, and you don't own up to any of your mistakes, yet you attract women from all facets of life and they think you're the bees knees.

*You scrape up money any way you can think of and borrow money from your friends for alcohol and yet, you are 'like-able' to everyone, as if they kiss your ass to be YOUR friend.

*You live in a hand-me-down house with a minimal mortgage and you're late on payments and just happen to realize that while cleaning out your basement [because of some random request from a man you don't know (the devil is in the details)] you come across a treasure trove of items that not only can get you out of debt, but also make you even more worthless by giving you more money to spend on booze.

*When a guy asks to rent from you and your friends hear about it initially...they seemingly forget conveniently throughout the rest of the book and wonder how you're 'getting money' or 'acting weird'.

These are just a few points that really got on my nerves, but it definitely held my attention throughout. I kept thinking there was more to the story, but alas, it's basically as it is. It's as if he's trying too hard to visit ideas that have been visited before through a weird story that doesn't quite affect me the way it has with others.

The Man in the Basement is the name of the book, but he's not truly the main focus. I kinda wish he had been because it would've probably been more interesting.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Rush: A book that starts with THE

This is gonna be a quick one because I have no clue how to talk about this book.

The Man in My Basement is about the confrontation between a Black man and the White stranger who rents his basement cellar for the summer. This is such an odd little book. I'm not sure I completely understand what I just read but I'm almost positive that I won't be able to stop thinking about this book for a very long time.

The Man in My Basement is a meditation on race, Black masculinity, depression and our own battles with the darkness that lives in all of us. This book was a wholely(is that a word?) original novel. I've never read anything like it and I don't think I ever will.

No rec because this book isn't for everybody but those of us it is meant for will really feel it.

[Shahram · Rating 4 out of 5]

مرد توی زیرزمین خانه ام اثر والتر موزلی .داستان روان،پرکشش و متفاوت،از آنها که مدتی ذهن را مشغول خواهد داشت.امتیازاین اثر در برابر سایر آثارنویسنده از دید خوانندگان من را مطمئن ساخت که باز هم سراغ وی خواهم رفت.نقل قول:"گه داشتن قول خیلى ساده تر از قدم گذاشتن به دنیاى دروغ و فتنه است"."عدالت زمانى اجرا میشه که فرد مورد قضاوت هم اونو به رسمیت بشناسه. عدالت، بدون وجود درک و ندامت… چیزى نیست جز انتقام"."او یک شیطان بود و من یک شکست خورده؛ اصلا شاید تفاوت میان آدم هاى خوب و بد این دنیا همین باشد"

[Julie Tridle · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've read this book twice now and didn't really like it either time. In general, I like Mosley-- at least when he's writing as a crime writer. With this book, he abandons the crime genre to create a more philosophical book, which, unfortunately, failed to satisfy me. What I like about Mosley's other books are his characters and dialog. Easy Rawlins, Fearless Jones and the characters from his other books are likable enough to give you a reason to pull for them. Charles Blakey, the main character of this book, is a loser (described as so in the book) who doesn't seem to want anything from life. And Anniston Bennet the "man in the basement" never evolves into anything other than a symbol of power, evil, and whiteness who is for some reason seeking redemption in this odd way. I find the dialog between the two men highly convenient, unrealistic and dull. I don't know. This book, for me, just falls a little flat.

[Theresa (mysteries.and.mayhem) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm still trying to gather my thoughts after reading The Man in My Basement. Not much physically happens in the book, other than a few amorous exploits by our main character, Charles (please don't call him Chuck). This is also a book where none of the characters are likable at all. I only kept reading out of pure curiosity to learn more about what's motivating the man in Chuck's basement.

This book is a psychological and philosophical journey. If that isn't your thing, I'm pretty sure you won't like this book. While I didn't care for Charles, I was intrigued by his character's journey.

In conclusion, it was an interesting book, but I won't recommend it to anyone. At the same time, I won't tell anyone it isn't worth reading. It was middle of the road for me. I probably won't bother with the film adaptation. Three stars.

[Jane Dugger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Has this ever occurred for you: You begin a book and two paragraphs in you realize you've been reading poorly written books for ages? This is what happened when I picked up this one. The story was OK, the characters were mostly unlikable or indifferent to me, but the writing was marvelous. Mr. Mosley writes so clearly and succinctly that it felt like I'd been previously breathing with a stuffed nose and didn't realize it.

[Reza Abedini · Rating 4 out of 5]

شخصيت اصلي رمان يك سياه پوست تنها و از كار بيكار شده به نام (چارلز داد بليكي) هست


روايت بسيار متفاوت و پيچيده و خواندني بود
تاثير عوامل بيروني بر تغيير ذات يك انسان
گفتگوي عجيب يك شيطان كه براي شكست خوردن توي ماموريتش خودش رو زنداني و شكنجه ميكنه

روند داستان خيلي پر كشش و جذاب بود و صحبت هاي بنت و بليكي درباره عشق و سياست و پول من رو ياد بعضي از جملات ١٩٨٤ انداخت ،

سير تبديل شدن يك شخصيت بي عرضه از (چارلز ) به آقاي (داد بليكي) و سپس (زندانبان) و روند تغييرات رفتار يك نفر در اثر شرايط بيروني و پول بسيار تامل برانگيز بود

بر خلاف توضيحات كتاب و معرفي بعضي از سايتها ، ژانر اصلا معمايي و پليسي نبود و به قول همون توضيحات كتاب و سايتها پر بود از تمثيل هاي كافكايي

[Sarah-Grace (Azrael865) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. What a good, different story. I don't want to give anything away. I never figured out what the goals of the "Man in the basement" were until the author revealed them.

I will be looking into Walter Moseley's other works.

[Amos · Rating 4 out of 5]

What does it mean to be good?
What is evil?
Why does Charles have a man locked in a steel cage in his basement?

3 1/2 Inscrutable Stars

[Joy D · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of this book is seemingly simple: Anniston Bennet, a white man with a dark past, asks a black man, protagonist Charles Blakey, to imprison him in his basement. The execution is much more complex. It asks the reader to contemplate philosophical questions of ethics, motivation, and self-deception. Would a strange request such as this be worth the risk for financial gain? I do not want to reveal too much about the storyline, since part of the enjoyment of this book is getting drawn deeper and deeper into the power dynamics of the situation. It is my first book by Walter Mosley but will not be my last.

[Shirma · Rating 1 out of 5]

The last fifty pages of this book was hugely frustrating reading. I just wanted the book to end. The idea for the story is a good one but there wasn't enough suspense or building of the plot. A mysterious, white man rents a basement for the summer from a black man in Easthamptons. He stays in the basement in a cage, a self-imposed prisoner, as punishement for his many "crimes," which he does not consider crimes. He knows secrets about governments, the wealthy and world systems - yet, to me, he never disclosed anything that was worthy of being called "top secret." He's afraid of the dark though and is upset when he's placed in "solitary" by the black home owner, who's now his "warden." The characters were weak; I felt no sympathy or any kind of attachement or emotion for anyone in the story. I was reading and thinking about what I could read next; I was that bored.

My friends keep talking about the genius of Walter Mosley's work. I don't get it. The Tempest Tales was better than this one, but still. I'm going to try one more of his books.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fabulous book. Completely different from anything else I've read by Walter Mosely.

It tells the story of a last of the line original black family that came to America, Massachusetts, as free people.

This book is about journeys to find oneself both for the Narrator, and the man who pays him a ton of money to imprison him.

It is one of the most interesting books I have ever read.

[Atlasi Khoramani · Rating 5 out of 5]

واقعا داستان متفاوت و تامل برانگیزی بود. عالی بود

[La Tonya Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a bizarre novel with intrigue. A novel with the purpose of absolution for your life sins as the center piece. Anniston Bennet, a white man wants to live in a cage in the basement of a black man's home, Charles Blakey, for absolution. Only Charles can be his warden because he knows what atrocities on human kind Anniston has committed and the extent of the damage. But, Charles has never met the man.

Charles is unemployed, attempting not to loss the family house, and dealing with his own atrocities himself. Charles and Anniston find absolution together through the game. A must read.

[N · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eerie indictment on race, class, murder and war crimes. This is the story of Charles- down on his luck, an alcoholic and about to lose the family home; the only thing that he has holding him together.

Enter Anniston Bennett, a mysterious and white wealthy man who asks Charles if he could rent his basement- which would end all of his money problems, but with a catch: he wants to turn his basement into a prison in which he asks Charles to be his jailer. A provocative and well paced thriller- this is a great novel by Mr Mosley.

[Karee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm beginning to enjoy Mosley books more and more.

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

I snagged this book after I saw the ad for the movie adaptation on Youtube. (I did this too with Die, My Love, but I haven’t read that one yet - It’s in linnnnne!) I (mistakenly) thought that this was going to be a horror story, because you know that I don’t read descriptions. LOL I saw 1) Walter Mosley and 2) Ernie Hudson read the audiobook and 3) it was available, and that was the end of the deliberations. I haven’t even read that many of his books, AND I can’t even say that I loved them all that much to make him an auto-read author for me. But so it was anyway.

And so, let me just say now that Ernie Hudson should read more audiobooks. Seriously. What a delight to listen to. I think that ship has probably sailed though, sadly, as he’s nearly 80 now. Sigh.

ANYWAY, so I saw this ad for the movie on Youtube, and it immediately snagged my attention because of Willem Defoe. Oddly, he is one of my favorite actors, and the husband and I went on a “Let’s watch everything he’s ever done” binge a while back. Definitely some hits and misses as far as the movies go (miss me with motorcycle flicks or anything Wes Anderson), but Willem is such a chameleonic joy to watch. His role in Boondock Saints is *chef’s kiss*. So good. (Jeez, I need to hang a shiny in front of my laptop screen so I can stay focused. /end of digression - again)

I don’t know why I assumed that this was horror, except that Willem felt decidedly devilish to me, and usually when a rich white guy comes to offer the down on his luck Black guy something too good to be true, it ends up being a deal with the devil, even if not literally, horror monsterly, so.

And so it… sort of?… was here? This book definitely went in a more philosophical direction than I was expecting, and examined motivations for power and the depths to which humans will go to attain and protect and satisfy it. What the facilitators of power and depravity do, and know, and live with, and what their souls must endure… should they have them.

I found it interesting and intriguing, but ultimately I felt like something was missing, or I was missing something in it. I expected more of the racial dynamic to be explored. As depraved as the revealed deeds he confessed to were, I still expected a bit more from the resolution. Or maybe I expected more from Charles in terms of what this all meant to him. Why was learning this man’s secrets so important to him that he would go to the lengths that he went to in order to ‘persuade’ them out of Bennet?

As far as the main storyline goes, I found it interesting and curious, and I think that it would benefit from a real in-depth analysis and examination… but I’m unlikely to reread it to do that. I found every bit of the non-main storyline to be tedious and downright annoying, except for the history with his bastard of an uncle. I didn’t care for Charles’s sexual exploits, or his trio of girlfriends, his constant lies. I didn’t care for his friends or their dynamic and everything about it seemed so… selfish and pointless. But maybe that was the point.

I dunno. It was quite fascinating to me how the two main characters seemed to invert as their characters grew throughout the story. The aspects of their growth were quite interesting as well. Like I said, there’s a lot to examine here, and I am almost certain that I didn’t “get it”. But still, the experience of it (other than the romantic sideline plots) was enjoyable.

I’ll be interested to see what the movie does with this story.

[Liliana Blum · Rating 5 out of 5]

No conocía a este autor y me he quedado enamorada de él. Qué libro maravilloso y magnífico. No sé cómo terminó en mi Biblioteca, pero ahora quiero leer más de él.

[Benjaminxjackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story and characters are engaging, especially once you buy into the main premise. The characters change, but the changes are logical and well put together.

Much of the book is more complicated than it seems. While there is no explosive climax, the book is well-written to the point that after the story comes to a resolution, you are still hooked into the falling action as the story winds down in the last chapter.

Even the racial currents of the book turn out to be more complicated than they seem at first glance.

One question that comes up throughout the story is what is it that separates successful people and powerful people from others. It also raises the questions of what are people willing to do to be successful, to survive, and to live with themselves afterwards.

[Stefan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mosley does it again, using speculative fiction to really challenge our concepts of morality on a much larger scale. It’s not a simple thing to do, questioning some of the most simplistic and pragmatic things in life. Surely, it seems quite obvious that a title such as 'The Man in My Basement' doesn't sound at all like an action-packed trip to the circus. However, Mosley doesn't exactly make the novel feel as if it is a boring stroll in the park either.

The story line certainly may not be as thrilling as most readers would enjoy it, since we literally learn about a man living in somebodies basement throughout the entire novel. Nevertheless, despite the unfortunate change of location in the book, Mosley focuses on the deranged ideas that Mr. Anniston Bennet has, when he decides to lock himself up in Charles Blakely’s 200-year-old basement for exactly 65 days.

Undeniably, from a rational point of view, Anniston Bennet sounds insane, and non compos mentis to say the very, very, least. And yet, by the end of the novel he might very well seem to be one of the most logical and well-reasoned characters in the entire book. During his stay in the lonely Charles Blakely’s house, Mr. Bennet explores conceptual ideas on the puzzling topics of immorality, pain, death, and love. But as the story develops, Bennet’s dark history becomes clearer every progressing day to Charles, to the point where Mr. Blakely is so sure that the devil himself is living only a few floors below him. Though we can never really be sure of why Bennet came into Charles’ gloomy life, we can be certain that Bennet has a lot to say, and that it’s going to be hard to cover your ears this time.

Walter Mosley does a fantastic job of getting the reader to question how they lead their lives. Philosophy and ideology have a humungous role in this book, as they are used to not only question Charles Blakely and what he is doing about his life, but to get us thinking about our own personal stories.

So, since it isn’t entirely an electrifying or monotonous book, what does 'The Man in My Basement' feel like? Thanks to its flat plot line, but intense ideas on some of the biggest topics in life, it might as well be, metaphorically (of course), a walk in a quiet park thinking about some of the craziest ideas in life. If that's what you like, that's exactly what 'The Man in My Basement' is.

[Santiago L. Moreno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frases y párrafos cortos, profusión de diálogos y descansos continuos; sucintas descripciones de lugares, ritmo fluido y acciones cristalinas; subtramas bien hiladas y personajes sencillos por fuera que, sin embargo, muestran una notable complejidad interior. La escritura de Walter Mosley da la impresión de que enhebrar todo esto es tan fácil como el apodo de su personaje más popular, el que le lanzó a la fama, Ezequiel "Easy" Rawlins. El caso es que, como resultado, sus libros son siempre absorbentes, rápidos de leer. "El hombre del sótano", por ejemplo, me ha durado día y medio.
Aunque se trata de un libro independiente, no incluido en sus series de detectives, el aroma noir impregna la atmósfera del relato. En esencia, en él se narra el enfrentamiento dialéctico entre un hombre que lo ha hecho todo en el terreno del mal y otro de carácter depresivo que no ha hecho nada a los 33 años. En ese debate se desarrollan apuntes sobre la vida, la sociedad, el poder y las cortinas tras las que se gesta, con el capitalismo y sus perversiones siempre presente. En el deambular del protagonista y el origen de su forma de ser la historia alude también a la fuerte influencia del pasado y de la infancia en nuestras vidas. Novela de preguntas sobre las que reflexionar, que cierra maravillosamente, con uno de esos puntos de inflexión no explicados sobre los que el lector se preguntará durante mucho tiempo y con una frase final mayúscula, tan espeluznante como pertinente. Siempre se habla de las primeras frases más famosas, y porque no se hace, creo que en igual medida se debería hablar de algunas últimas.

[Jodi Sh. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Before this book I'd have told you I worshipped at the altar of Mosley, loved all things Mosley.

The story: Black man living in a large family home in the Hamptons, broke, unemployable, drinks too much with only two friends and pretty much no prospects is approached by a thin balding little white man who offers to pay him more than enough money to pay off his mortgage and keep him comfortable for a good long while--if he can live in the basement for a set amount of time. Well, not actually live, but be imprisoned, locked in a cage, with Blakey (the homeowner) acting as jailer.

With a premise like that, it should be interesting, but most of the real estate is taken up in conversations between Blakey and his prisoner, Aniston Bennett, and it's about as exciting as watching old men play chess. If this was the first Walter Mosley book I picked up, I'd never pick up another. Very cerebral, meaning of lifeish, what is good and what is evil, and all that without even a single epiphany.

I put it down to read Spent: A Memoir. I put it down again to read Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant?. I should have left it down.

Bored.

[Elisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very powerful book. Charles is not a likable character, he is actually quite awful, but he is so real that I couldn't help but feel for him. There is no murder to solve, but the tension is higher than many novels. Maybe because crime and human nature, are at the center of this book. It's one of those stories that will keep rattling in my head for a long time to come.

[Erin Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rich writing and complex characters. Flawless dialogue and descriptions. Only flaw I can see is character plausibility but it wasn’t distracting enough to take away from the joy of a fantastic read. I’ll be thinking about this character for a long time.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started the book because I was watching a compilation of 2025 horror film trailers and the adaptation for this came up.

I'm genuinely baffled after reading the book why on earth the trailer modelled the story as one of horror. I mean yes, once we dig into the earth and see what's there it is horrifying. But...horrifying in a way entirely out of the realms of the 'spooky creepy' cut of the trailer.

Going off the trailer it made me think Willem a.k.a Mr.Bennet was a serial killer or he knew the basement was haunted and wanted to use the space to summon a demon.

No, just incredibly sad and depressing real life cruelities of man. Mr. Bennet doesn't exist but the things he has done certainly exist in the real world, across countries, across many people and many, many years.

I wasn't really gelling with everything because I already am not feeling well mental health wise and Charles was having a Not Great time to put it loosely. Charles was a very interesting character, it's a hard sell to create a flawed character and still engage the reader to have empathy for them. Charles is not a great person but also not the devil, just a person with a lot of troubles and quite a few caused by himself. I didn't like you much Charles, but there were moments I could see the better side of you!

The last handful of pages, especially that last paragraph was immensely powerful and I'll be thinking about that for a good while.

I think if that section and paragraph hadn't been one of those 'lets a breath out slowly' moments for me, I'd have felt pretty down on the reading experience in general just because this isn't the type of story I'd typically read. And of course, I went into this with the only info being 'the film adaptation trailer looks like a horror film' and 'the trailer was in a 2025 horror film compilation' so what was mostly the catalogue of a troubled man getting by wasn't what I was looking for. And our villain was certainly that but alas, not a fun horror film kind.

I enjoyed the writing style, going to leave this little chat we're having on this particular section I liked a lot:

He was like one of those death-row inmates that they interview just before the sentence is executed. You see all the evil that they caused, but you still feel like death is not the answer — that killing this man would in some strange way take away his victims’ last hope

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I noticed this book on display while I was browsing at a bookstore near my apartment, which happens to be a basement apartment. When I say ‘on display’, I mean that there was an index card affixed to the shelf under the book that designated it as the book of the month for the mystery book club, which would meet in a couple of weeks to discuss it. Because the cover image was sort of interesting, because the premise of the story, judging from the back cover’s précis, reminded me a little of Kafka’s ‘The Hunger Artist’ (in spite of the fact that it seemed as though it had been specifically written to inspire that association), because going to a book club seemed like a good, social thing to do, and because I had just received my tax return and could afford to buy a book without agonizing over it, I bought it.

The premise is that a pretty wealthy and mysterious ‘short white man’ offers a black man an exorbitant amount of money to rent out his, the black guy’s, basement. But he wants to stay in the basement in a cage, as a prisoner. It’s a little bit unbelievable, maybe very unbelievable, but if you can accept that premise, there’s a good deal of tension early on and towards the middle of the book, as you anticipate finding out what this guy’s motives could possibly be. Structuring the book this way, however, seemed to me to put a lot of pressure on the scene or scenes, which had to happen, where these two guys were going to sit down in the basement and have stark, philosophical, merciless conversations. Which I was looking forward to. Unfortunately, the guy’s motives turn out to be pretty abstract and lame (both, somehow), and I found the second half of the book pretty boring. I guess he is supposed to be an embodiment of the complacency in all of us, of our complicity with evil, but if that’s the case Mosley probably would have been better served by creating a character that seemed even remotely human. And other authors have done this sort of thing more interestingly and specifically, and without having to resort to ridiculous premises. If you would like a great variation on this theme, for example, try Camus’s The Fall.

The dynamic between the two guys plays out more or less like the Zimbardo prison experiment, but there is another dynamic that exists between them that I couldn’t help but notice and wonder about. The guy in the basement will say something, for example, like ‘you…you’re not going to leave me down here in the dark with only bread and water for four days…are you?’, and the other guy will say, ‘well, I hadn’t planned to, but now that you mention it that’s a good idea.’ From which the guy in the basement clearly takes, uh, a certain kind of pleasure, which is described more than once. The physiological manifestation of that pleasure, I mean. I am not the kind of person who looks for sexuality in every aspect of a book, but this theme was kind of difficult not to notice, and I’m not sure what its significance was.