Easy Rawlins

Character biography

Easy Rawlins was born on November 3, 1920, in New Iberia, Louisiana. His mother died when he was eight years old; soon afterward his father fled to escape lynching after fighting with a white man. The fight was the result of a dispute with his father's supervisor over earnings. Easy had accompanied his father to his job at the slaughterhouse and saw his father argue with the man. When the man called his father the N-word, his father punched him. After the scuffle, Easy and his father ran off, with his father kissing Easy one last time, and telling him to go home. Easy never found out what became of him.