The Legacy of GHETTO PULP FICTION - Critical Essay

Lloyd Hart says he knows about the life portrayed in the stories firsthand. While serving a seven-year prison sentence for manslaughter, Hart discovered a new world between the pages of books. He now runs The Black Library with his partner Kevin Fisher from a pushcart in Roxbury's Dudley Square and an Internet site that offers hundreds of titles but has links to works by only two authors--Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines.

Gwen Daye Richardson, who says she read Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim under the covers at night as a youngster, reports, "There is often a difference between what those incarcerated want to read and what their friends and relatives think they should be reading." Richardson adds, "those on the outside prefer to send inmates inspirational books and tales of redemption like Nathan McCall's Makes Me Wanna Holler, Patrice Gaines's Laughing in the Dark or Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land. However, inmates still request the gritty urban tales.

Appeal Outside the Inner Cities

Professor Carl S. Taylor of Michigan State University's Institute for Children, Youth and Families has studied youth culture for almost three decades. He says the stories of Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines are appealing as a part of the "wild frontier." "White and black middle-class youth are drawn to the stories because they present a side of life that others have tried to hide from them. Street culture has always appealed to these kids," says Taylor. "They have been taught to look at the preacher and the teacher for examples of the community, but not the total environment--never the pimp. This is what people still are ashamed of. That's what makes it exciting to young people."

Taylor says Madison Avenue has embraced hip hop and taken it to another level with rapper Eminem and designer Tommy Hilfiger. Young people want truth, and Donald Goines tells it like it is, leaving the reader to make his or her own judgments. Taylor points to the anticipated release of Pimp: The Story of My Life, a film version of Iceberg Slims autobiography produced by and starring Ice Cube. The much anticipated movie will be directed by Bill Duke.

Not surprisingly, Iceberg Slim devotees refer to his books as classics. Before his death, Slim's books had sold more than six million copies. Pimp, probably his best-known work, continues to rack up sales in the U.S. and Europe. (It has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, and Greek.) In the spring of 2001, the autobiography graced United Press International's top ten mass market paperback list (week of April 9, 2001), which also included books such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Hobbit and Fahrenheit 451. That's pretty heady company.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Cox, Matthews & Associates
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group