Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing

217 Pages·2013·8.04 MB·English

by  Justin Gifford

Pimping Fictions

Pimping Fictions
African American Crime Literature
and the Untold Story of Black
Pulp Publishing
justin gifford
Temple University Press
philadelphia
Temple University Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19122
www.temple.edu/tempress
Copyright © 2013 by Justin Gifford
All rights reserved
Published 2013
library of congress cataloging-in-publication data
Gifford, Justin, 1975–
Pimping fictions : African American crime literature and the untold story
of Black pulp publishing / Justin Gifford.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4399-0810-5 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4399-0811-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
ISBN 978-1-4399-0812-9 (e-book)
1. American fiction—African American authors—History and criticism.
2. Detective and mystery stories, American—History and criticism. 3. Urban fiction,
American—History and criticism. 4. African Americans in literature. 5. Crime in
literature. 6. Pulp literature, American—Publishing—History. 7. Holloway House
Publishing Co.—History. 8. Himes, Chester B., 1909–1984—Criticism and interpretation.
9. Goines, Donald, 1937–1974—Criticism and interpretation. 10. Iceberg Slim, 1918–1992
Pimp. I. Title.
PS374.N4G485 2013
813’.087209896073—dc23
2012032598
The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American
National Standard for Information Sciences—P ermanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1 992
Printed in the United States of America
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
A book in the American Literatures Initiative (ALI), a collaborative
publishing project of NYU Press, Fordham University Press, Rutgers
University Press, Temple University Press, and the University of Virginia
Press. The Initiative is supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
For more information, please visit www.americanliteratures.org.
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
1 “He Jerked His Pistol Free and Fired It at the Pavement”:
Chester Himes and the Transformation
of American Crime Literature 14
2 Pimping Fictions: Iceberg Slim and the Invention
of Pimp Literature 40
3 The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Donald Goines,
Holloway House Publishing Company, and the
Radicalization of Black Crime Literature 68
4 Black in a White Paradise: Utopias and Imagined Solutions
in Black Crime Literature 97
5 “For He Who Is”: Players Magazine and the Reimagining
of the American Pimp 127
6 The Women of Street Literature: Contemporary Black
Crime Fiction and the Rise of the
Self-Publishing Marketplace 152
Notes 183
Index 199

Acknowledgments
Every intellectual endeavor is the product of many contributors; this
project is no different. I first owe a debt of gratitude to Ross Posnock
and Kenneth Warren, early mentors who transformed my understand-
ing of race, literature, and American culture. Many teachers and schol-
ars at the University of Virginia shaped my work and helped me clarify
my thinking, including Deborah McDowell, Rita Felski, Marlon Ross,
Ian Grandison, and especially Jennifer Wicke, the toughest and fairest
critic I have ever encountered. My peers at Virginia, Michael Lundblad,
Sarah Hagelin, Andrea Stevens, and Jolie Sheffer, taught me what a sup-
portive intellectual community could be. Many of the arguments in the
book were tested at Dartmouth’s Futures of American Studies Institute,
Harvard’s English Institute, and the Cultural Studies Now Conference
in London. Special thanks to those who asked probing questions and
provided helpful advice in the early stages of developing the project. I am
particularly grateful to Eric Lott, the chair of my dissertation committee,
whose friendship, guidance, and unflagging support over the years have
been a source of inspiration throughout my intellectual journey.
This book would quite simply not exist in its current form without
the contributions of a number of people whom I interviewed over the
years. Many thanks to Bentley Morriss and Diane Beck, who shared
their knowledge of Robert Beck and Holloway House Publishing Com-
pany. Thanks to Roland Jefferson, Odie Hawkins, Zola Hawkins, Emory
Holmes, and Wanda Coleman, all of whom spent many hours talking
with me in interviews and helping me understand the art and business
viii / acknowledgments
of black crime literature. Their insights were crucial to the development
of many of the main arguments of this book. Special thanks to Betty
Mae Shue, Camille Beck, and Misty Beck for sharing their memories of
Robert Beck in interviews. I owe a particular debt of gratitude to Eddie
Allen, who shared with me important primary documents owned by the
late Donald Goines. Finally, I would like to thank Jorge Hinojosa and
Ice-T, who invited me to participate in their documentary film, Iceberg
Slim: Portrait of a Pimp, and who provided me access to many primary
documents, interviews, and manuscripts.
Furthermore, this project could not have been completed without the
help of librarians, private book collectors, and street vendors. The library
staff at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the Ned
Guymon Mystery and Detective Fiction Collection at Occidental College
provided me with invaluable assistance. Special thanks to the owners of
the Magazine in San Francisco, Black and Nobel Books in Philadelphia,
and Black Star Line Music and Video in Harlem for helping me track
down rare and out-of-print books and magazines and for sharing their
knowledge about the contemporary African American literary scene.
I completed this project with the financial and intellectual support of
my home institution, the University of Nevada, Reno. A Junior Faculty
Research Grant and several Scholarly and Creative Activities Awards
furnished me with the resources to create my database of African
American novels and magazines. To my colleagues in the Department
of English, I owe thanks for their comradeship and scholarly insight. For
their mentorship and critical comments on various drafts of the manu-
script, I owe a great deal of thanks to Scott Casper, Eric Rasmussen, Mike
Branch, and Jen Hill. I am grateful for all my junior faculty colleagues,
whose stimulating and supportive friendship over the years gave me the
strength to finish this book. Thanks in particular to Lynda Walsh, whose
professionalism has been inspirational to me, and to Cathy Chaput, my
friend and ally in the struggle for radical egalitarianism. I want to give
special recognition to Erin James, who read and commented on mul-
tiple drafts of the complete manuscript and who always asked the right
questions.
My students have been an ongoing source of encouragement and
research assistance for this project. They have found rare and out-
of-print books, helped me construct my database of black crime nov-
els, and challenged my thinking about black popular culture through
many exciting conversations. Although there are far too many people
on this list to acknowledge, I would like to thank Vanna Nguyen, Linda
acknowledgments / ix
Kay Hardie, Jamie Farley, Katie O’Neill, Rachel Baez, Brianna Thomp-
son, and Brad Nelson. I am particularly grateful for my many talented
graduate students, as their energetic collegiality and sincere personal
investment in literature and cultural politics is what this profession is
supposed to be all about. Thanks especially to Josh Culpepper, Tom Her-
tweck, Sylvan Goldberg, Jessica Fanaselle, and Kyle Bladow, who read
drafts of the manuscript and offered insightful comments or who influ-
enced my understanding of African American crime literature through
thought-provoking discussion. Special thanks to Emily Katseanas for
always serving up realness in our conversations. Additionally, I would
like to thank Laurel Griffiths for her exceptional editorial work and for
creating the index for this book.
Many thanks to my agent, Matthew Carnicelli, for believing in this
project and placing it with a major university press. I would like to thank
Temple University Press for its professional treatment of my manuscript.
I want to acknowledge the work of my three anonymous readers, who
offered a number of insightful comments to help improve the manu-
script. I also appreciate the tireless work of my editor, Mick Gusinde-
Duffy, who brought this book to completion.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my family and friends.
My best friends, Johann Sehmsdorf and Beckett Senter, have been sup-
porters of my writing for over two decades now. Blythe Kladney pro-
vided love and encouragement during the most difficult stages of the
writing process. I am grateful for the friendship of Rei Magosaki, my
co-conspirator and partner in crime for many years. Madeline Chaput,
your smiling face has brought magic to the world. Finally, my parents,
Larry and Karen, and my sister, Jessica, have been the greatest source of
inspiration for my work. Thank you for teaching me how to take joy in
fighting the good fight.