Walkin' the Dog

Critical Praise

"Walkin' the Dog will add to Mosley's growing reputation as one of this country's best writers, regardless of genre."
--Ed Will, Denver Post

"The pleasures of Walkin' the Dog are abundant. It's the language, the deft characterizations, and, finally, it's the triumph of Socrates himself, a man whose wisdom is hard won..... Mosley cuts to the quick, letting Socrates put words into action, creating a story that is filled with ideas and never wanting drama."
--Thomas Curwen, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"Time and again Walkin' the Dog surprises the reader, like a fable or like life.... It contains moments of sharp insight and scenes of sudden poignancy.... Moving and subtle, gritty and poetic, Walkin' the Dog is a memorable and admirable work."
--Tom Nolan, San Francisco Chronicle

"Mosley's prose style, light as a butterfly and sharp as a beesting, is fully evident in these stories about Socrates Fortlow.... Each is a small, perfect moral fable about some injustice or indignity to the human heart -- and what could be more wicked than those?"
--Adam Woog, Seattle Times

"Gripping.... Walkin' the Dog is as much moral fable as it is social fiction.... Mosley lets his characters make their own mistakes, and narrates their rough lives in a gentle voice that reflects the dignity due anyone who survives behind the high walls of America's Odessas."
--Adam Goodheart, New York Times Book Review

"This is Mosley's finest achievement..... Walkin' the Dog invites favorable comparison to Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man.... Mosley has crossed the threshold from excellent storytelling into literature with this work."
--Cecil Johnson, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram

"All of Mosley's characters, by the end of this generous, reserved, sure-handed book, feel as familiar -- and as mysterious -- as old friends, and you peek around the last page, hoping to see more of them."
--A. O. Scott, Newsday