Rating: 
Summary: Interesting!
Review: Enjoyed this non-genre book by Mr. Moseley. It explained some of the mystery surrounding Robert Johnson and why people were so enthralled by him. The main character was a pathetic soul until rescued from the trash heap by Kiki. Their platonic relationship created their salvation, as she found a purpose to live and Soupspoon finished his life searching out is past. I found the characters realistic and also pitiful. Moselys' gift is to transport the reader back in time and show him the rich history that makes up our culture.I recommend this book to music lovers and lovers of fiction everywhere.
Rating:
Summary: Original, engaging, confronting
Review: I don't know that I've read anything like this before - the guy has his own very readable style. It starts a bit like the movie `Paris, Texas', where you suddenly are in the middle of seemingly unbelievable people in extreme circumstances, and then over time you realise how credible they are.
I don't know how `real' these characters are - everything is always life or death, intense pain and/or emotional climax: is it that Mosley's skipping the bits where `nothing much happened that afternoon', or is he suggesting that this sort of overwhelming life is actually happening constantly? At times it feels like a `Pulp Fiction' style sensory overload fantasy, at others a `serious' character novel.
The issues they're facing are not mine, but the stories and characters are engaging (and confronting), and well told. There's some background thriller/suspense - well done too - but this is a million miles from a formula paperback.
Rating:
Summary: Love in vain
Review: I enjoyed this book while I was reading it. I really did. Even through the descriptions of Soupspoon's pain and squalor -- which came close to turning my stomach -- I still wanted to know what would happen to this old bluesman. But when I wasn't reading it, I dreaded picking it up again. I remembered how it reminded me of (and amplified) my own pain and sorrow, and didn't really want to go back to that place again. But I eventually did, every time, and somehow feel the better for it. It's kind of like a blues song that way, in that it can simultaneously sadden and cheer you at the same time.The relationship between it's main characters is key. Atwater "Soupspoon" Wise is dying of cancer, and wants an opportunity to record his story for posterity. That story encompasses the history of the Delta Blues, and features prominently the great Robert Johnson (Robert Leroy, the RL of the title). He is rescued from penilessness and homelessness by Kiki, a stranger in his building. Kiki has her own problems to deal with (including her alcoholism and her tortured past), but sees enough in Soupspoon to arouse her compassion. They make for an odd, but interesting couple. This is all serviced by Mosley's simple and lightly poetic prose. He does a wonderful job conjuring up images and emotions using the sparest of sentences. If given my druthers, I would have liked to spend more time exploring Soupspoon's history, especially the legend of Robert Johnson. I know that not much is known about him, but it might have been fascinating if Mosley tried his hand at hypothesizing even more than he already does. Without that, the story becomes a requiem for Soupspoon, where the crux of the suspense hinges on whether or not he'll get his history recorded before inevitably succumbing to cancer. His end manages to be both sad and uplifting. Kind of like a blues song.
Rating:
Summary: Love in vain
Review: I enjoyed this book while I was reading it. I really did. Even through the descriptions of Soupspoon's pain and squalor -- which came close to turning my stomach -- I still wanted to know what would happen to this old bluesman. But when I wasn't reading it, I dreaded picking it up again. I remembered how it reminded me of (and amplified) my own pain and sorrow, and didn't really want to go back to that place again. But I eventually did, every time, and somehow feel the better for it. It's kind of like a blues song that way, in that it can simultaneously sadden and cheer you at the same time. The relationship between it's main characters is key. Atwater "Soupspoon" Wise is dying of cancer, and wants an opportunity to record his story for posterity. That story encompasses the history of the Delta Blues, and features prominently the great Robert Johnson (Robert Leroy, the RL of the title). He is rescued from penilessness and homelessness by Kiki, a stranger in his building. Kiki has her own problems to deal with (including her alcoholism and her tortured past), but sees enough in Soupspoon to arouse her compassion. They make for an odd, but interesting couple. This is all serviced by Mosley's simple and lightly poetic prose. He does a wonderful job conjuring up images and emotions using the sparest of sentences. If given my druthers, I would have liked to spend more time exploring Soupspoon's history, especially the legend of Robert Johnson. I know that not much is known about him, but it might have been fascinating if Mosley tried his hand at hypothesizing even more than he already does. Without that, the story becomes a requiem for Soupspoon, where the crux of the suspense hinges on whether or not he'll get his history recorded before inevitably succumbing to cancer. His end manages to be both sad and uplifting. Kind of like a blues song.
Rating: 
Summary: Mosley's language captures the power of the blues.
Review: I love music, but I know very little about the blues. I had heard of Robert Johnson before I read this book-but I knew nothing about him, really. Half way through this book I felt compelled to stop on my way home from work and buy the Robert Johnson Anthology. Mosley does for storytelling and language, what Johnson did for the blues. If you read the book, you'll understand that this is an enormous compliment. One that Mosley would probably shy away from, but don't let him! The story is hard and sad, beautiful and funny and full of terrific charcters - much like a good blues number. The only thing that stops me from gibing this book a "10" is the quick way that Mosley more-or-less disposes of the Kiki character at the end of the novel. Soupspoon's passing is both beautiful and memorable. Kiki's felt like the goofy adendum's that appear at the end of "American Graffitti." A minor complaint though.
Rating:
Summary: The blues defined through a life meaningfully lived.
Review: I thought this guy just wrote mystery novels. Then I went to hear him read from his latest, "Gone Fishin'" He riveted the room sufficiently for me to feel compelled to ask him which of the titles in his opus was personally his favorite. Not skipping a beat or paying attention to my earnest gaze, he answered, "RL's Dream. It's the one I like best." "Good enough for me," I called, scurrying over to the table piled high with books written by Mosley, each of which was doubtless the favorite of many. The author inscribed my freshly printed copy of his book with, "Rosalind, we miss you back east." Then I strolled home ready to read. I teach expository writing; I read for a living; I talk for a living; and it's frankly hard to capture my unwavering interest--least of all with a should-have-been mystery novel by the author of "Devil in a Blue Dress." Nevertheless I couldn't put this book down. From the first page it held me in a life, breathing with the main character, a dying blues guitarist, RL, who is put out on the street with cancer in his bones and too many memories of the blues life down south to let him sit down and die in peace. The book chronicles his last days of documenting bygone gigs with Robert Johnson, the mythical bluesman who is said to have sold his soul to the Devil to play like no other could. But Mosley's work extends beyond that man and that myth to another lesser-known, also talented blues guitarist who walked in Johnson's shadow to get a handle on his greatness. RL winds up defining the blues, as does every soul, in his own unique fashion. This book should be required reading for anybody who listens to the Blues, or to its grandchild, Rock, or its stepchild, Grunge. "RL's Dream" helps us understand the roots of all those forms that seep into our veins and order our lives around the rhythm, stroke, and cadence of our hearts.
Rating:
Summary: The blues defined through a life meaningfully lived.
Review: I thought this guy just wrote mystery novels. Then I went to hear him read from his latest, "Gone Fishin'" He riveted the room sufficiently for me to feel compelled to ask him which of the titles in his opus was personally his favorite. Not skipping a beat or paying attention to my earnest gaze, he answered, "RL's Dream. It's the one I like best." "Good enough for me," I called, scurrying over to the table piled high with books written by Mosley, each of which was doubtless the favorite of many. The author inscribed my freshly printed copy of his book with, "Rosalind, we miss you back east." Then I strolled home ready to read. I teach expository writing; I read for a living; I talk for a living; and it's frankly hard to capture my unwavering interest--least of all with a should-have-been mystery novel by the author of "Devil in a Blue Dress." Nevertheless I couldn't put this book down. From the first page it held me in a life, breathing with the main character, a dying blues guitarist, RL, who is put out on the street with cancer in his bones and too many memories of the blues life down south to let him sit down and die in peace. The book chronicles his last days of documenting bygone gigs with Robert Johnson, the mythical bluesman who is said to have sold his soul to the Devil to play like no other could. But Mosley's work extends beyond that man and that myth to another lesser-known, also talented blues guitarist who walked in Johnson's shadow to get a handle on his greatness. RL winds up defining the blues, as does every soul, in his own unique fashion. This book should be required reading for anybody who listens to the Blues, or to its grandchild, Rock, or its stepchild, Grunge. "RL's Dream" helps us understand the roots of all those forms that seep into our veins and order our lives around the rhythm, stroke, and cadence of our hearts.
Rating: 
Summary: Commendable
Review: In this first of Mosley titles not including his famous Ezekiel Rawlins character, Mosley attempts to recount the journies of Mr. Atwater "Soupspoon" Wise, and simultaneously define the root of his caretaker's (Kiki) mental anguish. While this is a commendable undertaking, RL's Dream is about one-hundred pages too short. The plot line is weak at best, and the reader him or herself never gets a clear chance to define whether or not Soupspoon is indeed living RL's dreams. The only way that we know this is from his ex-wife's taunts. As an avid Mosley reader and fan, needless to say I was hopelessly disappointed when the "twist" that ties everything together in his other novels was non-existent in this one. The one saving grace for this novel, as always, is Mosley's vivid use of imagery, and his ability to put you in the seperate world of a specific charcter. But you don't have to take my word for it!
Rating:
Summary: wonderful.
Review: loved it. can't wait for more
Rating:
Summary: Redemption
Review: RL's Dream is a haunting story that will change the way you see your life. Through this book, you will see ways that facing up to your pain can bring redemption. The book opens as elderly black Jazz musician, Atwater "Soupspoon" Wise, painfully returns to his apartment in lower Manhattan. His respite is brief when the landlord's men evict him for many months of not paying his rent and call Social Services to pick him up to be returned to a homeless shelter. It's cold as Soupspoon lies amidst his few belongings on the sidewalk, and it's getting dark. He's so sick he can barely speak, and has a horrible pain in his hip. He feels death standing over him. While he's been going through this, one of his neighbors, Ms. Kiki Waters, a young white woman is also painfully coming home after being released from a hospital after being stabbed by a young boy. She is appalled to find Soupspoon on the street, for he is the man whose happiness had just cheered her a few days before the attack on her. Knowing her duty as a human being, she orders the men to move Soupspoon into her apartment along with some of his belongings. Kiki nurses Soupspoon back to health, but uses methods that leave her life at risk. In the course of their evolving relationship, each one learns how to turn pain into beauty and goodness. Soupspoon does it by playing and singing the blues. Kiki does it by facing up to and overcoming her fears. The story is beautifully developed around the memories that Soupspoon and Kiki carry around of their younger days in the South. Soupspoon is frustrated that he cannot reach the heights as a musician that his friend RL Johnson could. Kiki carries intense fear from the abuse she suffered at her father's hands. Both are prisoners of those memories until they take steps to move beyond them. Those steps are their redemption. To me the most powerful part of the book is the opening. Imagine yourself riding home on the subway full of stitches from a knife attack. Emerging, you see a poor, old man lying on the street who is your neighbor. Would you stop to help? What would you do to help? Chances are that you would not do as much as Kiki does. Yet we are supposed to love our neighbor as ourselves. Kiki hasn't known much love, yet she gives all she has to Soupspoon. It's a beautiful story, and shows how beautiful life can be. If you also love the Blues, this book will reward you with wonderful sketches of what is was like to create that rich music that grew out of pain in the South during the early 20th century.
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