GHALEN

The redoubtable Mosley applies his laconic style, astute social perspective, and dexterity with unsettling ambiance to this coming-of-age novel.

Ghalen Romeo Horton is, on many levels, an extraordinary young man, the product of an unlikely but blessed union of two Black people with little in common besides their Southern California upbringings, difficult mothers, and the impulse “to save money and use it wisely.” His father, Robert Horton, grew up poor, works as a chef in a vegan restaurant, and, for all his expressive gifts, seems to have trouble putting his thoughts in order. His mother, Jamilah Fenestra, comes from a middle-class background and, when she meets Robert in 1999, is studying for both an M.D. and a Ph.D. in medical genetics at UCLA. They marry and their son is born in the first year of the new millennium. Ghalen turns out to be a bright, intuitive learner, reading at an early age, figuring out how his father puts together healthy meals. Though Jamilah dies from cancer-related complications when Ghalen is still a young boy, he and Robert forge ahead through tribulations and triumphs scattered along their life paths. Ghalen graduates high school at 15 as valedictorian of his class, carrying into the future a magnanimity and composure that bely his relatively young age. But because this is a Mosley novel, you can expect unpleasant, unjust, and (above all) violent things to disrupt what would otherwise be a smooth passage to adulthood. Though this tautly fashioned bildungsroman represents one of Mosley’s infrequent departures from his distinguished work in mystery and crime fiction, it has a similar, page-turning propulsion along with shrewd characterization that prevents the reader from easy judgment of even the most unpleasant people in Ghalen’s star-crossed life.

Even in chaos, darkness, and hardship, this novel finds reasons to believe in the human spirit.