Debbie Doesn't Do It Anymore

March 17, 2014
A pornographic actress, Debbie Dare, comes to terms with her past after her husband’s death, in Mosely’s shocking but ultimately flat 43rd book. Here, the author forgoes the well-plotted mystery genre he’s staked his name on; his latest novel finds its intrigue in the profession of its well-developed main character. Fully realized and sympathetic, Debbie is among Mosely’s best creations to date, due to a well-wrought first-person perspective and snap-tight dialogue. She navigates an L.A. landscape fleshed out with bizarre characters, from porn producers and a mafia hit man to the mother of her deceased husband, who help her distinguish her identity from her on-screen persona. While Debbie is an elemental creation in Mosely’s canon, a strong female character with an impeccable voice, the book itself is slow paced, with an unsatisfying climax. Perhaps in a sequel, the author will find the right book in which to place his new heroine.

February 15, 2014
A porn star experiences an epiphany of sorts in the wake of her husband's death. Prolific novelist Mosley (Little Green, 2013, etc.) fielded his fair share of criticism for his X-rated one-two punch of Killing Johnny Fry (2006) and Diablerie (2007), and readers attracted to the equally explicit nature of this novel might be expecting more of the same. In truth, readers are likely to be more surprised by the depth of protagonist Sandra Peel, whom the author treats with tremendous compassion. Of course, when we first meet Sandra, she's in the guise of Debbie Dare, an ivory-haired, black pornographic film star who, in the midst of a typical scene, experiences a rare and revelatory orgasm, causing her to pass out. She returns home to find that her husband, fellow porn-film actor and part-time pimp Theon Pinkney, has accidentally electrocuted himself and a 16-year-old runaway in a hot tub during a sex act. The book then follows the well-read and resolute woman through the next week or so as she tries to sort out her husband's funeral, avoid the mobsters who want her to pay her dead husband's debts, figure out a way to quit the business, reconnect with friends and family, and listen to the whisper of suicide sailing behind her cold eyes. Except for flashbacks and the novel's opening scene, there's not even any sex for the determined exile-to-be. "Thousands of us boys and girls had run screaming from the same filth and stink of poverty," she says. "Black and white and brown and yellow and red had put out their thumbs and pulled down their pants, used lubricants and drugs and alcohol to escape these decaying ancestors and others just like them." Mosley's characteristically well-crafted cast also includes a kind police detective, a nonjudgmental shrink and a shy young architect with a crush on the non-glammed-out Sandra. A well-told redemption song about the most unlikely of heroines.

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March 15, 2014

Winner of PEN America's Lifetime Achievement Award and famous for his best-selling historical mysteries starring hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, Mosley returns with an ambitious and intriguing novel about how we act in challenging situations. Black porn star Debbie Dare, who typically wears a blonde wig and blue contacts, arrives home to find the electrocuted body of husband Theon in the hot tub with an underage girl who is just a little older than Debbie was when she met him. In the following days, she takes care of her husband's affairs, connects with his mother, and chooses a different profession. The premise is jarring, yet Mosley is able to paint a picture of ordinary people. He shows the humanity of the characters despite their flaws: "I loved Theon in my sleep that night," says Debbie. "He was an ideal husband, a man who took care of so many people and things that he didn't have time for children--or even a proper job." VERDICT Like Eric Jerome Dickey's Genevieve, this book will appeal to readers who like their erotic fiction with a little depth. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/13.]--Ashanti White, Yelm, WA

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Starred review from February 1, 2014
Sandra Peel is having a rough week. Her husband has died, accidentally electrocuted in the bathtub (while in the company of another woman); she discovers she's broke (Theon, her husband, was seriously in debt, and apparently she now owes a lot of money to some guy who might just kill her if she can't pay up); and she's decided to quit her job, reunite with her young son, and change her life. That's a lot of good material to work with, but, maybe just to give himself an extra challenge, Mosley makes Sandra, better known as Debbie Dare, a porn starand, yes, there is some graphic language and imagery in the book because Mosley's not the kind of writer who hides the truth behind a sanitized curtain. If this novel were a movie, and we were living in the early 1970s, Sandra would be played by Pam Grier: a beautiful, tough, smart woman who won't take crap from anybody. This could be the best thing Mosley has written in years, a deeply affecting story of a woman whose determination to pull herself out of one life and into another is tested almost to its limits by things she can't controluntil she finds a way to control them. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Mosley's work in noncrime genres has proved uneven over the last several years, but he's back to the top of his game here. Expect plenty of attention for this daring and compelling novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)