The Mullet Man, a touching story of an unusual friendship between an elderly black man and a 11-year-old white boy in the deep south in 1955, provides a highly impactful tapestry of life and racism in the U.S. The ties that bound them together started with their common love of fishing but soon developed into a far deeper connection. Independent-minded Ulysses, known as Uly, holds others off from his fishing spot by using their fears, faults and weaknesses to keep from fishing in his favorite spot.
But Richie, the young son of a Navy serviceman, has the courage to breach this enclave. Together, the unlikely pair defy the onslaught of opposition by society. Searing incidents experienced by Richie include a violent breaking up of his friendship with another white boy because he and his parents deplored Richie's association with Uly. Conversely, Richie is present when his father helps a black woman with a car problem on the road and refuses any payment. Uly's guidance to Richie, transcending fishing lore, provides a tremendous amount of home-spun advice and philosophy based on his life experiences which include being a field hand, a gandy dancer, a gator hunter and businessman. Richie, whose family has moved many times due to his father's military deployments, has a strong curiosity about life in general as well as fishing in particular. His growing perceptions come across as raw and real and reveal troubling insights about life in the south during this period and troubling insights still existing. The very valuable life lessons they glean from each other present a very real slice of Americana! How their relationship finally fares provides a gripping denouement to their memorable story.
This novella retells this experience of Richie growing-up under the conditions of those times and his opinions about the current state of racism in the country as well as the changes needed that Uly foresaw for there to be racial harmony. These changes are insightful and provocative, but probably, given the divisiveness of the country, not realistic. Which, much to his disappointment, is why Uly doubted that racism will ever cease to be a major social and political issue that divides the country.
