Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with some MLIS students in a readers’ advisory class. In it, I tried to convey that street fiction has a rich deep history that stems back to the oral tradition of Stagger Lee. So often critics just focus on the contemporary urban fiction scene or if they dig a little deeper they stop at the godfathers – Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim – and not the grandfathers of the genre. Here’s a possible path that I believe urban fiction may have evolved from:
Early Literary History
1722: Moll Flanders – social reflections of a prostitute
1800s: Stagalee ballads – the original gangsta badass hustler
1882: First pulp magazines – focus on crime, sex, & action
1893: Maggie, a Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane
1906: The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
1940: Native Son by Richard Wright (Ghetto Bildungsroman)
1941: Blood on the Forge by William Attaway
1950s: Pulp paperbacks – hardboiled crime, drug noir, and sex
1965: Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown
1968: Howard Street by Nathan C. Heard
1969: The Godfather by Mario Puzo
1970: Blaxploitation and evolution of Hip-Hop music
Also, in combination with all of the factors above, toasts played a critical role in both street fiction and the development of hip-hop:
If you’re unfamiliar with toasts, they are narrative pre-rap poems told on corners and in prisons. “Fall” toasts were cautionary and melodramatic portraits of players in the game and their downfall.
Here’s an example from Whoreson by Donald Goines:
“I tried to remember the old toast an old con had once told me. It fitted me to a tee: ‘ The jungle creed, said the strong must feed, on any prey at hand. I was branded a beast, and sat at the feast, before I was a man.’ Yes, that was it, and that had been my problem. I had been introduced to the game at too young of an age. As I stared through the bars, I began to see myself more clearly…”
I also touched on why urban fiction appeals to readers. Based on my experience doing readers’ advising at my library:
Fast-paced action novels, frequently a hybrid between crime thriller and romance fiction in an urban setting.
Straight forward cinematic prose style – “It’s like a movie in my head.”
Outlaw fables with anti-hero characters.
Readers claim to relate to the story, setting and characters.
Authenticity, but sometimes absurd in material details (product placement).
Readers tend to be Africa American women, ages 18 – 35, but it also attracts more male readers than any other genre.
Many parallels between street fiction and hip-hop.
Black vernaculars common in stories: language, music, and food.
Please let me know what your opinions are on the history and appeal factors of urban fiction. The entire presentation I gave is below:
