Street poison : the biography of Iceberg Slim / Justin Gifford.
Gifford, Justin, 1975- author.
2015
PS3552.E25 Z64 2015 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection

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Title Street poison : the biography of Iceberg Slim / Justin Gifford.
Author Gifford, Justin, 1975- author.
ISBN 9780385538343 (hardcover)
0385538340 (hardcover)
9780385538381 (electronic book)
Published New York : Doubleday, 2015.
Language English
Description xxi, 265 pages, [8] pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
Call Number PS3552.E25 Z64 2015
Dewey Decimal Classification 813/.54 B
Summary "The first and definitive biography of one of America's bestselling, notorious, and influential writers of the twentieth century: Iceberg Slim, né Robert Beck, author of the multimillion-copy memoir Pimp and such equally popular novels as Trick Baby and Mama Black Widow. From a career as a, yes, ruthless pimp in the '40s and '50s, Iceberg Slim refashioned himself as the first and still the greatest of "street lit" masters, whose vivid books have made him an icon to such rappers as Ice-T, Jay-Z, and Snoop Dogg and a presiding spirit of "blaxploitation" culture. You can't understand contemporary black (and even American) culture without reckoning with Iceberg Slim and his many acolytes and imitators. Literature professor Justin Gifford has been researching the life and work of Robert Beck for a decade, culminating in Street Poison, a colorful and compassionate biography of one of the most complicated figures in twentieth-century literature. Drawing on a wealth of archival material--including FBI files, prison records, and interviews with Beck, his wife, and his daughters--Gifford explores the sexual trauma and racial violence Beck endured that led to his reinvention as Iceberg Slim, one of America's most infamous pimps of the 1940s and '50s. From pimping to penning his profoundly influential confessional autobiography, Pimp, to his involvement in radical politics, Gifford's biography illuminates the life and works of one of American literature's most unique renegades"--Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-249) and index.
Record Appears in On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
Childhood
Education
Prison
Chicago
Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary
On the road
Los Angeles
Hollywood
Final years.

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