Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (UK 2018)

From the Publisher:
Adapted for the screen in 1998 starring Laurence Fishburne as Socrates Fortlow.
New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley introduces an "astonishing character" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) in this acclaimed collection of entwined tales. Meet Socrates Fortlow, a tough ex-con seeking truth and redemption in South Central Los Angeles -- and finding the miracle of survival.

"I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there." Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his huge, rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts. Working for the Bounty supermarket, and moving perilously close to invisibility, it is Socrates who throws a lifeline to a drowning man: young Darryl, whose shaky path is already bloodstained and fearsome. In a place of violence and hopelessness, Socrates offers up his own battle-scarred wisdom that can turn the world around.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Orion Books, ISBN 9781474608558 (September, 2018), eBook, 1.72 MB (ca 208 p.), £8.99.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (USA 1998)

From the Publisher:
New York Times bestselling author Walter Mosley introduces an "astonishing character" (Los Angeles Times Book Review) in this acclaimed collection of entwined tales. Meet Socrates Fortlow, a tough ex-con seeking truth and redemption in South Central Los Angeles - and finding the miracle of survival.

always outnumbered, always outgunned

"I either committed a crime or had a crime done to me every day I was in jail. Once you go to prison you belong there."
Socrates Fortlow has done his time: twenty-seven years for murder and rape, acts forged by his huge, rock-breaking hands. Now, he has come home to a new kind of prison: two battered rooms in an abandoned building in Watts. Working for the Bounty supermarket, and moving perilously close to invisibility; it is Socrates who throws a lifeline to a drowning man: young Darryl. whose shaky path is already bloodstained and fearsome.

In a place of violence and hopelessness, Socrates offers up his own battle-scarred wisdom that can turn the world around.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. A Novel. Washington Square Press, ISBN 0671014994 (October, 1998), 208 p., $14.00.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (UK 1998)

From the Publisher:
Introducing Socrates Fortlow... He's spent 27 years inside and can kill a man with his bare hands. But he has vowed to use his strength for good, to help the downtrodden and oppressed of the Los Angeles ghetto. His world is marked by deprivation and poverty but his struggle is heroic - to do right. Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned is an itensely humane work from a major writer at the height of his creative powers.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Serpent's Tail, ISBN 1852427027 (October, 1998), 208 p., £6.99.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (UK 1997)

From the Publisher:
'Socrates thought about a promise he'd made. A murky pledge. He swore to himself that he'd never hurt another person - except if he had to do it for self-preservation. He swore to try and do good if the chance came before him. That way he could ease the evil deeds that he had perpetrated in the long evil life that he'd lived.'

Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned features Socrates Fortlow, an ex-convict determined to challenge the violence and anarchy in his world and in himself. Like Socrates the Greek, Socrates Fortlow asks a lot of questions in an attempt to understand his world but, unlike his Athenian predecessor his take on the world is from the ghetto. Not everyone will agree with Socrates' ethical solutions but no one will deny his pugnacious ability to grapple with the most important moral dilemmas of our time.

Always Outnumbered. Always Outgunned showcases the Socratic dialogues of our time.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. Introducing Socrates Fortlow. Serpent's Tail, ISBN 1852425180 (November, 1997), 208 p., £11.99.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned (USA 1997)

From the Publisher:
From the best-selling author of A Little Yellow Dog -- the eagerly awaited debut of Socrates Fortlow, a bold and original hero.
Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned introduces Walter Mosley's most compelling new character since the debut of his immortal detective Easy Rawlins: one Socrates Fortlow, a tough, brooding ex-convict determined to challenge and understand the violence and anarchy in his world -- and in himself.

Three decades ago, the young Socrates had, in a burst of drunken rage, murdered a man and a woman with his huge "rock-breaking hands." Twenty-seven years of hard time in an Indiana prison followed. Now Socrates lives in a cramped, two-room apartment in an abandoned building in Watts, scavenging bottles and delivering groceries for a supermarket. In each of the stories that comprise this richly brooding novel, Socrates Fortlow, like his namesake, explores philosophical questions of morality in a world beset with crime, poverty, and racism. He is an unforgettable presence and his perceptions cast a glow of somber lyricism upon an often harsh world. Socrates is a creation of stunning originality; the book he inhabits is Walter Mosley's most powerful and eloquent to date.

Walter Mosley: Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned. W.W. Norton, ISBN 0393045390 (October, 1997), 208 p., $23.00.