Walter Mosley writes in various genres but is probably best
known for his mysteries. His 2010 novel, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey,
could be considered another one of his mysteries, but the mystery plot takes a
secondary role. Featured more prominently is the struggle the main character,
Ptolemy Grey, has with dementia.
The reader first encounters Ptolemy Grey when he is 91 years old and living
alone in an apartment he has inhabited in South Central LA for more than 60
years. Both he and the apartment are in appalling shape. The apartment is
cluttered, disorganized, and dysfunctional—as is his aging brain. He knows his
mind is failing and seems to him as if it “had fallen in on itself like an old
barn left unmended and untended through too many seasons.” (p.153)
Throughout the novel, Mosley
presents aspects of dementia and some of its oddities. For example, while
Ptolemy is riding on a bus through his town, certain sights trigger clear
memories from his childhood 80 years before. At the same time he is unsure where
he is going or why. Mosley also shows how people can possibly realize they are
slipping into dementia, for example, when Ptolemy stops talking to a friend
once “he could see in her eyes he wasn’t making sense.” (p. 122)
Ptolemy’s great-grandnephew Reggie provides him with the
assistance he needs to barely maintain his lonely existence in squalid
conditions. When Reggie dies, a new person comes into his life. Robyn, a
17-year-old orphan living with Ptolemy’s grandniece, begins to straighten out
his apartment and then his mind.
As Robyn gets Ptolemy’s apartment more organized and functional, Ptolemy’s mind
starts to get more organized and functional as well, but only a bit more.
Unsatisfied with his progress, Robyn takes Ptolemy to a physician who has an
experimental drug for dementia. Ptolemy is told that if he takes the drug he
will regain his mental acuity but probably not live more than a few weeks, or
months, at best. Without hesitation he takes the drug—“I wanna make it so I
could think good for just a couple a mont’s, Doc” (p. 126)—and rapidly regains many
memories and mental capacities. During the time he has with his newfound mental
agility, Ptolemy is able to make good on a commitment from his childhood and to
solve the mystery of Reggie’s death. While the experimental drug enables Ptolemy
to wrap up his business, it also produces a rather violent end to his life.
