Gone Fishin', actually a first novel unpublished until five mysteries were in print, emanates in part from Mosley's reading of the French existentialist writers, among them Albert Camus (The Stranger, 1942; see separate entry). The influence of Camus is evident in the way Easy thinks through moral precepts while he confronts the absurdities of a white racist society. It was not the French novelists, however, but Alice Walker'sThe Color Purple (1982; see separate entry) that opened to Mosley the possibilities for his narrative voice.

Because of its locale and characterizations, Gone Fishin' has been called a Southern Gothic and related to the novels of William Faulkner. Because of efforts to depict the realities of everyday life for African-Americans, Mosley and reviewers of his work place him in the literary tradition of Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, and Toni Morrison (see separate entries). Critical commentary relates Mosley's dialogue, built...