Devil in a Blue Dress
The novel is an African-American mystery thriller, set in Los Angeles in 1948, where and when racism was an accepted fact of life. It is about a Blackman, Easy Rawlins, and his search for knowledge about himself and his race.
Easy just got laid off his job and the threat of losing his house leads him to accept a mysterious job of looking for a white woman, Daphne Monet, the girlfriend of the richest man in LA at the time. She has precious knowledge that makes her the pursuit of many other people locked in a political contest, characterized by dirty tricks and smoking guns. Easy's pursuit of Daphne likewise translates into his pursuit of knowledge that means power, black power in particular, and what he goes through in that double pursuit provides him that knowledge about himself and the world he lives in.
The novel talks about knowledge being power and what the dominant (white) race and class struggled long in history to deprive the Blacks. There were laws against teaching (Black) slaves to read and educational support for Black communities was inequitable. Violations to this age-old restriction in the novel are its major attractions. Right at the start is a declaration of the process of change at that time when a white man walks into Joppy's bar and Easy feels a "thrill of fear" towards white people. It signals the emergence of black empowerment. When he lost his job, he tried to recover it but not at the expense of his pride in himself. The whites who worked with him imputed cowardice and stupidity to his desk job. He later on joined the military in an invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, where, despite racial hostility in the ranks, presented some possibility of mutual "respect" getting established. Even then, he was ready to fight...
He has a high school education, an ability to speak proper English in his native and "un-educated" Black upbringing, and his experience as a Black soldier in World War II. Besides his need to pay his mortgage, Easy is steep in his search for knowledge and this is evident throughout the novel and in his search for Daphne. When the police question him, Easy gets to see that racism renders the truth irrelevant in their treatment of him. He constantly insists on his right to understanding what is going on, even when he is being released. He also realizes that knowledge has "utility" value as a means to self-protection and as a sales item. But his chief education is on the meaning of violence -- the kind that connects to power -- beginning with his exchange of experiences on the violence of war with Albright, who states that the only difference between them is their "plain tolerance of slaughter."
Easy's close friends, Joppy and Mouse, are representations of competitive violence. Joppy is a former boxer who still exudes raw and mindless force, a murderer in search only of his own self-gratification. And Mouse is Easy's best friend and protector whose violence skills are at their best when his interests or loyalties are imperiled. Joppy and Mouse's violence places black power only the on the defensive in this world where white power is in control.
Every violence appeals to Easy as an occasion to assert self-respect. He may have killed some whites during the war, but he still struggles against aggression. He gets beaten in the performance of his new…
