05/04/2015
Gifford follows his essential study of street lit, Pimping Fictions, with a thoroughly engrossing biography of Robert “Iceberg Slim” Beck (1918–1992), “black America’s bestselling writer, the literary godfather of hip-hop, and definitive icon of pimp cool.” He follows Beck from his working-class Chicago roots to the streets and prisons that served as his crime schools, and then to his phenomenal sales and influence as the author of the groundbreaking 1967 memoir Pimp: The Story of My Life. Beck, having spent the 1950s alternately incarcerated and working as a pimp, was released from prison in 1962 and found himself “past forty with counterfeit glory in past, and no marketable training, no future,” setting the stage for his new path as a writer. This biography is informed by interviews and archival research (school, prison, and historical society records; contemporaneous press accounts), as well as by Gifford’s judiciously applied skepticism of Beck’s own recollections. In addition to lucid critical assessments of Beck’s published and unpublished works, Gifford offers a flavorful account of African-American cultural and social history. He makes an entertaining, informing, and most persuasive argument that a writer “practically unknown in the American mainstream... is arguably one of the most influential figures of the past fifty years.” Agent: Matthew Carnicelli, Carnicelli Literary Management. (Aug.)
Praise for Street Poison:
"Mr. Gifford’s taut biography is important and overdue. The author, an associate professor of English literature at the University of Nevada, Reno, is a dogged researcher who arrives at a somewhat unexpected conclusion: The stories in Pimp are mostly true."
—Dwight Garner, The New York Times
"Writing the life of a celebrated memoirist can be a daunting and thankless task, but Justin Gifford handles the job with aplomb in his new book, Street Poison. A decade’s worth of research allows him frequently to correct the record where Pimp and Beck’s other autobiographical writings may have fudged the facts. But Gifford’s greatest achievement is placing Beck’s life within the context of larger social, political and economic changes."
—Jon Michaud, The Washington Post
"Gifford writes that 'as a master teller of tales, [Beck] also occasionally embellished the truth.' That would make him a challenge for any biographer, but Gifford meets it with a combination of solid research and genuine compassion for this complex, often troubled man.... 'I have tried to tell his tale the way he might have wanted: clearly, honestly, and without moralizing,' Gifford writes. By refusing to either idealize or demonize his subject, he succeeds."
—Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe
"Gifford patiently crafts a narrative that shows how Beck, a Chicago pimp, became the godfather of hip-hop, an integral cog in Hollywood's Blaxploitation era and one of the most-read black authors of the 20th century. In addition to providing phenomenally researched material into the life and writings of Beck, including FBI files, unpublished fiction and letters written from Beck to his publisher, Gifford provides us with robust historical, pointed political context for new and seasoned readers of Beck's novels Pimp, Trick Baby and Mama Black Widow.
—Kiese Laymon, Los Angeles Times
"Iceberg Slim has something timeless to say not just to gangsta rappers, but to all Americans, black and white, rich and poor, male and female, criminal and law-abiding. It’s in his books, and it’s in the pages of the timely and richly rewarding biography Street Poison."
—Bill Morris, The Millions
"Justin Gifford’s Street Poison is the first biography of the man known as Iceberg Slim, and it is hard to imagine how it could be topped. Like the man himself, Poison is complex, eloquent and ferocious."
—Christopher Schobert, The Buffalo News
"A groundbreaking biography of a black writer whose bestselling novels about his criminal youth had a deep influence on African American writing and culture."
—Tom Lavoie, Shelf Awareness
"The first biography of Robert Beck, aka Iceberg Slim, (1918-1992), builds a compelling case that the pimp-turned-popular author provided the foundation for gangsta rap, Blaxploitation movies, and so much of the underground culture that became mainstream. Gifford transcends the opacity of academic writing in this lively account... 'This is not a story without tragedy....But it is a story of redemption and breathtaking creativity, too,' writes Gifford, who not only tells the story well, but shows why it's so significant."
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
"Gifford’s dramatic, hard-core, contextually dynamic, and powerfully affecting biography is sharply relevant to today’s civil rights struggles."
—Booklist, starred review
“[A] thoroughly engrossing biography . . . In addition to lucid critical assessments of Beck’s published and unpublished works, Gifford offers a flavorful account of African-American cultural and social history. He makes an entertaining, informing and most persuasive argument that a writer ‘practically unknown in the American [literary] mainstream is arguably one of the most influential figures of the past fifty years.’”
—Publishers Weekly
"Gifford has written a remarkably researched, fascinating life story of popular writer Robert "Iceberg Slim" Beck (1918–92). The author's material is not high literature, and his life can be difficult to read, but Gifford makes a strong case for the enormous popular appeal and the continuing widespread influence of Iceberg Slim."
—Library Journal
05/15/2015
Gifford (English, Univ. of Nevada, Reno; Pimping Fictions) has written a remarkably researched, fascinating life story of popular writer Robert "Iceberg Slim" Beck (1918–92). Author of the memoir Pimp and several novels, Beck was the original gangster figure, giving birth to such other urban fiction icons as Donald Goines, Odie Hawkins, and Clarence Cooper Jr., as well as rappers including Ice-T and Ice Cube. Gifford conducted interviews with many of Beck's associates and family members and utilized his access to the writer's archival material to provide an in-depth, highly engaging study. He not only offers insights on Beck's writings but also sheds light on the exploitative relationship between Beck and his publisher, Holloway House. Beck's personal failings and his tortured experiences with women (particularly his mother), drugs, and the penal system are fully explored. The author's material is not high literature, and his life can be difficult to read, but Gifford makes a strong case for the enormous popular appeal and the continuing widespread influence of Iceberg Slim. VERDICT Recommended for readers of popular fiction and African American literature. [See Prepub Alert, 2/9/15.]—L.J. Parascandola, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn
Narrator JD Jackson’s performance gives this literary biography of Robert Beck warmth and animation. Better known by his pen name, Iceberg Slim, Beck wrote the foundational novels of street lit 50 years ago. Gifford, a scholar of street and pulp literature, provides an analytical and sympathetic biography of Beck from boy to man, pimp to prisoner, to increasingly insightful author. Beck’s first novels, written from personal experience, feature black pimps and thugs as underdogs against racist white cops; his later works show a wider range of themes. Jackson clearly delineates with both pacing and inflection the passages Gifford quotes from Beck. Gifford and Jackson pair well to realize Beck’s complex humanity and help listeners understand why he remains the recipient of homage in both street lit and rap. F.M.R.G. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
★ 2015-04-27
The first biography of Robert Beck, aka Iceberg Slim, (1918-1992), builds a compelling case that the pimp-turned-popular author provided the foundation for gangsta rap, Blaxploitation movies, and so much of the underground culture that became mainstream. Gifford (English/Univ. of Nevada; Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing, 2013) transcends the opacity of academic writing in this lively account of a subject he even admits "might at first glance seem like an appalling choice for a biography…he abused hundreds of women throughout his lifetime, and he is practically unknown to the American mainstream." Yet his autobiography, Pimp, has sold millions of copies since its publication in 1967, though it was never reviewed in the literary press nor widely available in bookstores. Pimp and Slim's subsequent novels and essay collections could be more commonly found in inner-city newsstands, taverns, and barbershops. Such seminal rappers as Ice Cube and Ice-T took their names to honor him, and Mike Tyson considered him a father figure. To Gifford, he's an exemplar of the ambiguous complexity of the pimp in ghetto mythology, a flashy man who has been corrupted by a racist society and who has been able to triumph over white prejudice by exploiting black women who had too few options. The "Street Poison" of the title was the term favored by Slim to describe the insidious effects of ghetto life on an impressionable young man attracted to the worlds of sex, drugs, and glamour and who would deaden his soul to attain all of them. It shows complicated relationships with his mother and a series of father figures, accounts occasionally at odds with Slim's own writing, and it shows how he transitioned from a life of crime to pulp literature. "This is not a story without tragedy….But it is a story of redemption and breathtaking creativity, too," writes Gifford, who not only tells the story well, but shows why it's so significant.
