Iceberg Slim – författare

In this astonishing account, Iceberg Slim reveals the secret inner world of the pimp, and the smells, sounds, fears and petty triumphs of his world. A legendary figure of the Chicago underworld, this is his story: from defending his mother against the men in their lives to becoming a giant of the streets.A seething tale of brutality, cunning and greed, Pimp is a harrowing portrait of life on the wrong side of the tracks, and a rich warning from a true survivor.

“Iceberg Slim was true to where he came from. He ruled the streets of Chicago for twenty-five years and he chose not to write about what he didn’t know. He knew pimping. He knew hustling. He knew the streets. . . . Two decades after he wrote it, Doom Fox remains fresh to the game. What he calls 'The Life' is still the same roller-coaster ride it’s always been.” —from the introduction by Ice-TPropelled 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 Written in 1978 and unpublished until now, Doom Fox is a tale of the Los Angeles ghetto that begins just after World War II and spans the next thirty years. In the no-holds-barred tradition of Chester Himes, Doom Fox captures the 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.

Iceberg Slim's last published novel is perhaps his greatest. Death Wish, written in Slim's typically hard-hitting and highly compulsive prose, tells the story of Chicago's Mafia and the power struggle that ensues when the greedy Don, Jimmy Collucci, attempts to become the king-pin of Chicago's ''Honored Society''. Not only is this a portrayal of an organisation whose working details Slim knew intimately but we also see Mafia infighting set against a backdrop of the underworld in its entirety.For Jimmy Collucci has had a lifelong hatred pf dedicated Black Warrior, Jesse Taylor, against whom he has regularly competed for turf on the streets of Chicago. And Jessie Taylor has managed to get himself in a position from which he is confident that he can take on Collucci and his ruthless outfit.The result is bloody and riveting. Another masterpiece from the man whose prose redefined post-war American literature and who remains one of the most startlingly original and hard-boiled writers America has produced.

Iceberg Slim's third slice of ghetto life is recounted straight from the hip by Otis Tilson, a schizophrenic and ageing drag queen. However, the dominating presence and epicentre of this tragic tale is his suffocating mother - Mama Black Widow.Poisoned by the bigotry and abuse she suffered in early life, she in turn infects those that surround her. The damage she does to all she loves is deeply disturbing, no-one is left unscarred.Set in the dark hell of double standard justice, radical bigotry and criminal economic freeze-out, Mama Black Widow, proves arguably to be the most intense story ever penned by the man whose work has come to be regarded as the epitome of street fiction.

Airtight Willie and Me is a collection of six tales from the underground, all of them characterized by Iceberg Slim's distinctive and unforgettable prose. From the opening story, in which Slim meets Airtight Willie, one of New York's slickest con men, to Satin, a classic tale of revenge in which a heist goes badly wrong, the reader is hooked into a rollercoaster ride through the badlands of urban America. Compelling always, funny sometimes, and typically bleak in their endings, Slim's slices of city life are important social documents that scorch most contemporary into submission. There is no moralizing bullshit, no romanticized illusions, few redemming factors - just straight-up sawn-off shotgun blasts from the 'King of the Ghetto'.

Trick Baby charts the rise of White Folks, a white Negro who uses his colour as a trump card in the tough game of the Con. Blue-eyed, light-haired and white-skinned, White Folks is the most incredible con man the ghetto ever spawned, a hustler in the jungle of Southside Chicago where only the sharpest survive.With his partner Blue, an old hand who teaches him the tricks of the trade, White Folks rises to the top of his profession. The cons he pulls off get more and more lucrative and dangerous until one day they go too far...