Mosley's task in Gone Fishin' is to convey an intensely personal, darkly introspective journey. Plot and action are less important to this purpose than are settings, characters, and images that invoke mood. Flashback is one way Mosley establishes the sense of mental turmoil in his major character. Easy's chronological narrative is interrupted repeatedly by scenes with his long-lost father, or by delirious and broken images of parents.

The device of first-person narration helps to sustain the reader's sense of immediate contact with Easy's mental processes.

Easy is also remarkably believable because he is based partly upon the real- life experiences of Mosley's father in South Texas. Mosley uniquely blends the muchused, traditional coming-of-age story with actual social history. Critics have praised his ability to reconstruct real historical moments and to reproduce precisely actual dialects and rhythms of speech.

The characters Easy confronts are constructed richly, even if they...