The course was called Narratives of the Underground. The works of Iceberg Slim have their greatest readership in prisons, where they are admired for their recognition of the plight of the criminal.I taught Robert “Iceberg’s Slim” Beck’s compact gold and purple book, “Pimp: The Story of My Life,” in my first college class 14 years ago. Between 19, his books were translated into both German and French. These books as well as Airtight Willie and Me (1979), The Long White Con (1977), and Death Wish (1976) have gained popularity on college campuses. Slim's works are marked by their deep criticism of the American justice system, devotion to the politics of the Black Panthers, very frank language, and a combination of violence and sexuality. Of all his fiction, Mama Black Widow (1969), a sensitive portrayal of a tortured, cross-dressing, gay male, is considered his most masterful book.
Iceberg slim movie#
This story was subsequently made into a movie and released by Universal Studios.
One novel, Trick Baby (1967), chronicles the adventures of a light-skinned African American who chooses not to pass. Between 19, Slim authored seven books including his autobiography, Pimp: The Story of My Life (1967). The twenty-five years that followed were spent either pimping, taking drugs, or serving time in jail.Īfter his return to straight life, Iceberg Slim married, fathered four children, and began writing the books that assured his reputation as the most-read practitioner of the African American street novel. Back in Chicago by the time he was seventeen, he began his career by convincing his girlfriend to prostitute herself. After two years at college Slim was expelled for selling bootleg whiskey to other students.
Interestingly, he attended Tuskegee in the mid-1930s, the same time that Ralph Ellison studied there, although they were not acquainted. In his book of essays and vignettes, The Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim (1971), he asserts his belief that the drive to become a pimp derives from a disturbed mother-son relationship: “I am convinced that most pimps require the secretly buried fuel of Mother hatred to stoke their fiery vendetta of cruelty and merciless exploitation against whores primarily and ultimately all women.” The name Iceberg Slim reflects his ability to be emotionally frigid and physically brutal to the women who worked as prostitutes for him.Īlthough Slim's adolescence was strongly influenced by his involvement with street hustlers, his superior intelligence allowed him to graduate from high school at fifteen and to win an alumni scholarship to Tuskegee Institute. For the three and a half years that they lived together, Slim hated the new man in his mother's life and resented her betrayal of his stepfather.
Slim's stepfather, a kind and loving man, lifted his new family to economic security until Slim's mother left him for a violent gambler. Abandoned by her husband, Slim's mother had supported her infant son in a variety of jobs, including door-to-door hairdressing. Born in Chicago, Iceberg Slim (the street and later pen name of Robert Beck) spent the happiest years of his childhood in Rockford, Illinois, where he lived between 19 with his mother and stepfather. (1918–1992), novelist, autobiographer, essayist,Īnd most prominent author of the street genre, which emerged in the 1960s.
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