Jack Strong: A Story of Life after Life by Walter Mosley

Published digitally by Open Road Media on July 29, 2014

"Jack Strong" is a short story that is available for purchase in a digital version. This blog usually reviews books, but is making an exception for this story because (A) it is written as if it is the first in a series and (B) the blog is a fan of Walter Mosley.

As a general rule, I like Walter Mosley's crime fiction more than his science fiction, but anything he writes is certain to be literate and thought-provoking. The short story "Jack Strong" is no exception.

A man awakens in Las Vegas with conflicting memories. He recalls being a male pit boss, a female stripper, an old man at a bus stop, an obese woman playing slot machines. He notices that he has white male hands except for one black finger and one young woman's finger. He looks in a mirror and sees that he is a patchwork of skin tones, with different eye colors and varying colors of hair on different parts of his body. He is, figuratively and perhaps literally, Everyman -- and Everywoman, penis notwithstanding -- "an agglomeration of potentials on one side and personalities on the other." His driver's license says he is Jack Strong.

Momentarily settling into the personality of Lance Richards, Strong finds Richards' past catching up with him when he enters the casino Richards once managed. Fortunately, Strong is strong and at least one of his personalities is a skilled fighter. The violence that follows triggers a vigorous debate among his various selves -- some virtuous, some shady, some religious, some hedonistic -- about the morality and the consequences of his actions.

While all of the people residing in Strong's head are dead, they are capable of learning and changing. Working together, considering issues jointly, they make Strong a better person than some of his more nefarious identities would be if left to their own devices. Perhaps Mosley's point is that we are all influenced by many people over the course of our lives, and that we benefit from listening to their collective wisdom. Or perhaps his point is that we are all a complex swirl of good and bad and that we need to make choices that overcome our darker impulses.

The concept of multiple identities inhabiting a single individual has been done before and nothing much here is new. How Jack Strong came to exist is never explained, which I count as a mild weakness in the story. "Jack Strong" lacks the depth and emotional resonance of Mosley's best work, but you'd expect that in a short story. I still prefer the complexity of Mosley's crime fiction, but the characters are appealing and the plot, while a bit thin, is enjoyable.

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