Charles Blakey is a young black man whose life is slowly crumbling. His parents are dead, he can't find a job, he drinks too much, and his friends have begun to desert him. Worst of all, he's fallen behind on the mortgage payments for the beautiful home that's belonged in his family for generations. When a stranger offers him $50,000 in cash to rent out his basement for the summer, Charles needs the money too badly to say no. He knows that the stranger must want something more than a basement view. Sure enough, he has a very particular—and bizarre—set of requirements, and Charles tries to satisfy him without getting lured into the strangeness. But he sees an opportunity to understand secrets of the white world, and his summer with a man in his basement turns into a journey into inconceivable worlds of power and manipulation, and unimagined realms of humanity.
Charles Blakey has fallen on hard times. Out of work, heavily in debt, drinking too much, Blakey, a black man, worries about holding on to his family home in Sag Harbor. When a strange white man offers him $50,000 to rent his basement for the summer, Blakey can't refuse. What's the catch? Anniston Bennet wants to be imprisoned for the duration of his stay. Ernie Hudson's performance turns Blakey's dilemma into an exploration of perversity, punishment, repentance, and redemption. His accomplished handling of the exchanges between the two men resonates with truth. Hudson is compelling as Blakey wrestles with the seductiveness of power. In a departure from his popular Easy Rawlins mysteries, Walter Mosley presents a fascinating, if disturbing, look into the human soul. S.J.H. Winner of AUDIOFILE Earphones Award 2005 Audie Award Finalist (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
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