Charles Blakey is a black man in his early thirties, living in his old family home in a black neighbourhood in a town in New York state. Jobless and penniless, he would be a drifter if he hadn’t inherited his parents’ house, which had been in his family for generations, since America was first settled. As it is he stands to lose the house, having taken out a mortgage on it which he has no chances of paying back. He spends his life drinking, masturbating and losing himself in reading science fiction. Anniston Bennet is an older white man who steps unobtrusively into his life, offering ridiculous sums of money to rent his large basement for the summer. Blakey needs the money to save his home, his one physical link to his family’s past. Yet the request is odd as the basement is stuffy and has no natural light, while the large house is largely empty, with many unused rooms ideal for letting. But neither of these things even crosses his mind, and he rejects the offer simply because it seems easier to carry on doing nothing. Blakey is a man trapped by his own inertia.

Still, events conspire to lead him to reconsider the offer, and he finds himself cleaning the basement of its contents one afternoon, discovering family treasures in some cases hundreds of years old. He agrees to allow Bennet to stay in the room, but it quickly becomes clear that the offer is not as simple as it first appeared. Blakey is to be Bennet’s jailor, to hold him in a wire-mesh cage, feed him meals twice a day, and listen to his self-indulgent, half-mocking stories of the atrocities committed during his life in the name of capitalism. Revelations pour forth from both of the men and the balance of power shifts uncertainly between them. Jailor becomes hostage, trapped by the older man’s self-assurance, until Blakey swings control back into his own hands by exerting more authority than perhaps Bennet expected, starving him of books, leaving him in the pitch dark of the basement, and withholding food for days whenever he misbehaves.

It is soon clear that neither man is what he first appears to be, that both wear masks. Blakey was picked as jailor because of the irony of a black American keeping a rich white as hostage, but in fact his family were never slaves, travelling to the New World as free servants and representing some of the original settlers of the area, one of the ‘old families.’ Bennet is a cipher, nameless, faceless, his whole appearance calculated to mislead. He is trapped by bars that he himself erected, a prisoner by his own hands because he does not believe in the authority of the courts of any nation of the world. Blakey is supposedly trapped by money, but in clearing the basement of its contents he unearthed enough treasures to save his house and keep him comfortably for years. He lets Bennet stay out of curiosity, fascination, an inherent voyeurism.

The book deals with many different themes, and it is possible to draw several messages from it, differing I suppose according to your own viewpoint. This is a strength, not a weakness – Mosley does not sit in judgement of his characters, even when Bennet describes some of his most repellent crimes. We hear his own voice, or Blakey’s, throughout. The evils of global capitalism are highlighted, but so is the importance of knowing your personal history. Among the objects in the basement are a set of three African masks, several hundred years old, brought over on the boat by Blakey’s ancestors on their original journey to America. The dealer selling his goods encourages him to keep these priceless masks, and he spends much of the story staring at them, imagining their personalities, constructing lives for his forgotten forebears. They are symbols of history, tradition and family, but also of the masks worn by himself, Bennet and everyone else. ‘The Man in my Basement’ asks us to question ourselves, our lives, our society, and is an intensely compelling read.

Tim Foster considers the pinnacle of his writing career to have been having a letter he dashed out on something pretty inconsequential published in 'Empire'. It didn't earn him the free t-shirt though. He has loved making creative use of the English language for as long as he can remember; he and a friend co-authored a story when they were seven years old, but the accolades accorded them in school assembly as a result, subsequently led to sod-all further fiction being produced by Tim at least (he can't speak for his friend whom he has lost contact with). However, Tim has contributed reviews and features to student magazines and a website for the past five years. He lives in cosy South-West London and hopes to make a career in Publishing. He likes the music of Ryan Adams, pretty much all sport, and savoury dishes that are sweet.

© 2004 Laura Hird All rights reserved.