Chester Himes And Mosley Analysis

Chester Himes, who grew up in America in the 1930th, established himself as a innovator in the field of popular crime fiction from the beginning. Even though his popularity came to him while he was a resident of a foreign land, nevertheless, his work, which is often considered as uncompromising, despairing and full of violence, is well known in the United States today. Moreover, Walter Mosley, whose work is often compared to Himes', grew up in the era of the Civil Rights, perhaps that's why his fiction is gentler, and gained popularity much faster. Nevertheless, Himes' and Mosley's crime novels share some similarities that are build first of all on the African-American cultural politics and racial-ethnic relations. The two authors concentrate their attention on the black community, its every day life, different types of crimes and injustices “their” people have to overcome in order to survive in the unstable, unequal society. Himes, in one of his best known hard boiled detective novels, Cotton Comes to Harlem and Mosley in his detective story A Red Death both depict the significance of church in African-American community, as …show more content…
In particular, Walter Mosley pays a special attention to description of First African Baptist Church, a place that plays an important role in the detective story. The author describes in details the inside and outside of the church, stating that it was “a big salmon-colored building” that was built on the model of an old Spanish monastery; a large mosaic was placed on the high of the wall, and Jesus hung there, “bleeding red pebbles and suffering all over the congregation” (113). Furthermore, the church was beautiful on the inside