Street Fiction: Urban Fiction Interviews, News, and Reviews » Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck)

The Real Negativity of Urban Fiction

Daniel — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:43:21 +0000

In his introduction to Doom Fox, Ice T comments:

“Critics might say the same thing about Doom Fox that they sometimes say about Slim’s other books that it’s negative. I say that street life is negative. Change the conditions of the ghetto and the stories will change.” (ix)

StreetTalk presents quotes from current research on urban fiction to encourage a conversation about the genre. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Iceberg Slim’s Pimp was Hobbesian

Daniel — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:33:44 +0000

According to Lee Server, in The Encyclopedia of Pulp Fiction, “Pimp was powerful in effect, bluntly Hobbesian in philosophy, sizzling with matter-of-fact, unapologetic violence and sexism, contained a vivid self-portrait of Slim himself, the ego-driven, unsentimental, hedonistic, whip smart inner-city overachiever.”

“Slim’s great success would make him ruch, a ghetto folk hero, and influence on the entire ‘blaxploitation’ era in American movies of the 1970s.”

“[Iceberg Slim] influenced a thriving subgenre of street pimp memoirs and exposes, like:

Trickshot by Randolph Harris
The Art of Mackin’ by Tariq Nasheed
The Pimp’s Rap by Master Pimp (154)

StreetTalk presents quotes from current research on urban fiction to encourage a conversation about the genre. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Ice T on Iceberg Slim

Daniel — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 19:26:52 +0000

In his introduction to Doom Fox, Iceberg Slim’s (Robert Beck) last book, Ice T wrote:

“He spoke my language. The language of the ghetto. He wasn’t writing from the perspective of some brother who got outta the hood, but from the perspective of an insider.”

StreetTalk presents quotes from current research on urban fiction to encourage a conversation about the genre. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Autobiographical Form of the “Bad Man”

Daniel — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 00:45:12 +0000

“One reason why the form [urban fiction] has never been seen before is due to the fact that Robert Beck is the first urban slum-born-and-bred writer in the history of letters. Beck was born where Bigger Thomas was invented, had a father whose pedagogical methodology consisted of smashing his kid’s head against the wall and disappearing.” (24)

from Iceberg Slim: The Life as Art by Peter A. Muckley

StreetTalk is a new section where quotes from current research on urban fiction are presented to encourage a conversation about the genre. Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

ICEBERG SLIM: THE LIFE AS ART by Peter A. Muckley

Daniel — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:17:03 +0000

The life of Robert Beck is one of tragedy, drama, triumph, and triumphant disappointment. His life and the lives he witnessed inspired the memorable characters he created in his novels and essays penned until his death in 1992. In Iceberg Slim, unofficial biographer Peter Muckley has dissected the characters and prose of Pimp, Trick Baby, The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim, Mama Black Widow, Long White Con, Death Wish, Doom Fox, and Airtight Willie and Me to reveal some insightful interpretations as to the significance of these works. Through this exhaustive critique, Muckley has provided an intimate look at the man that the world has come to know as Iceberg Slim.

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DOOM FOX by Iceberg Slim

Daniel — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:06:43 +0000

Propelled by the story of Joe “Kong” Allen and his gorgeous, treacherous wife, Doom Fox is the last in Iceberg Slim’s legendary series of underground novels. Written in 1978 and unpublished until now, Doom Fox is a tale of the Los Angeles ghetto that begins after World War II and spans the next thirty years. In the no-holds-barred tradition of Chester Himes, Doom Fox captures a violent, vivid world of low riding chippie-catchers, prizefighters, prostitutes, and smooth-talking preachers.

With books such as Pimp, Trick Baby, and The Long White Con, Iceberg Slim detailed life among the hustlers in the inner city and reinvented the concept of cool. his books became underground classics, advertised and circulated by word of mouth. Stylish and uncensored, Doom Fox brings his unforgettable voice to the players of today.

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AIRTIGHT WILLIE & ME by Iceberg Slim

Daniel — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 19:03:39 +0000

When it comes to “hos” and the men who run them, when it comes to intriguing and super-paced rivalry between ambitious pushers and dealers who sell dreams in a blizzard of white powder, when it comes to knowing the streets, it takes a real player and that player is Robert Beck. For more than two decades, Beck, writing as “Iceberg Slim,” has fascinated or horrified readers of his books and stories. Beck doesn’t create superflies and superhos; he gives the reader real live people – people with hopes and fears who cough and breathe and bleed and who grabbed hold of the only ticket they can find out of misery. But the ticket is often a one-way trip into hell and suffering. this anthology of stories by Beck is a monument to the courage of the people of the streets. Some of them make it; most don’t. Laugh along with them; cry when they cry; hurt when life turns against them.

Check out all of the street lit at Holloway House

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DEATH WISH by Iceberg Slim

Daniel — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 03:24:33 +0000

Author Robert Beck, better known by his ghetto pseudonym, “Iceberg Slim,” again displays his unique and compelling talent in this novel about the mafia – an organization whose working details he know intimately. It’s an ideal setting for Beck’s superb characterization as he portrays the greedy Don Jimmy Collucci, who wants nothing less than to rule the “honored society,” dedicated black warrior Jessie Taylor, who is driven to destroy it, and the dozens of people whose lives and fates are entwined with theirs. Vividly real, these powerful implacable figures and their stubbornly loyal underlings stalk each other through pages teeming with new life, love, lust, and death.

LONG WHITE CON by Iceberg Slim

Daniel — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 03:07:41 +0000

Author Robert Beck, better known by his ghetto pseudonym, “Iceberg Slim,” told the story of a blue-eyed, light haired, white-skinned Negro called “White Folks,” the most incredible con man the ghetto ever spawned, in the most famous of all of his books, Trick Baby. That, however, wasn’t all of the story of White Folks. Beck continues the saga Folks in this spellbinding new novel, playing the biggest score of his life. No chump change sores for Folks; he’s out to prove that he is a “true blue nigger” and dynamite with one long con…but Folks cannot forget the past, the stigma of being a trick baby, a mother who was gang raped, himself mercilessly violated by those who thought he was white. Beck’s unique talent for brilliant characterizations does justice to a cast of grifters that include High Pockets Kate, the High Ass Marvel and the Vicksburg Kid. Long White Con is a modern masterpiece.

Like Iceberg Slim, check out other old school street lit by Donald Goines

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THE NAKED SOUL OF ICEBERG SLIM by Iceberg Slim

Daniel — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 14:53:24 +0000

Don’t cry for his soul because he’s Black. Though Black is pain. Black is death. Black is despair. Black is the ghetto where he was born. And lived. As a pimp, dope addict, brutalizer of women – and other Blcks. But he cured himself of the ghetto rot. To write – as no other man ever has – about his people and his life. His name is Robert Beck. Better known by his ghetto name, Iceberg Slim. His first books brought him fame. Pimp, Trick Baby, and Mama Black Widow, a tragic, bitter family portrait. They were honest books – sensitive portraits of ghetto life and people. But this book, THE NAKED SOUL OF ICEBERG SLIM, is his most disturbing. Because he searches the artist’s soul in a collection of personal essays that are full of passion and razor-sharp perception. And when his soul is naked, you see the hurt of a man who feels too much and cares to much. This is a great book. Read it.

Check out other urban books by Iceberg Slim

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