Customer Reviews

Doom Fox

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Even if you can't directly relate to the characters in Doom Fox, you can relate to the themes of searching for a better life, for happiness and for love. All of the characters in this book have a story. Slim's graphic details put you right on the roller coaster with them. At first I was a little taken aback by his language because you begin to wonder if it's necessary but as I read on, I realized it is totally necessary! It's one of the things that makes this story so tangible. His descriptiveness also makes it a easy to picture the rooms, the houses, the alleyways and the people and dramas that take place there. I judge a book on many things but one of the most important is whether or not I feel attached to the characters once I finish it; the same way I do when I watch an outstanding film. Doom Fox was definitely one of those books.

DOOM FOX by Iceberg Slim is well worth reading. In my opinion, it was every bit as satisfying a read as PIMP or TRICK BABY or MAMA BLACK WIDOW. This, despite the fact that it was written in 1978 and never before published, most likely making it a found novel, without benefit of polish.The people in DOOM FOX don't talk in anybody else's voice but their own. And i found Slim's ear to be just as finely tuned as in any of his other books. There is nothing fake about this book. And i think it's very possible to write fiction and not be fake, although it's rare. Iceberg Slim has not lost his touch for that, here.The characters speak from their own, often broken, hearts. They are looking for love. They look up alley-ways and in the lair of a junkie con artist and in eyes that are looking somewhere else, maybe while pledging fidelity. What they find, is something else altogether.So, what is the Kirkus reviewer objecting to ? Sex ? Does he/she think the author invented it ? 'Language' ? Same deal.The book is a document of characters reaching out for some kind of happiness before their final breath.Personally, i enjoyed spending time with them, because i could believe them; because they were real.Who could ask more of a book than that ?

Is the only title I feel adequately descibes my feelings towards Slim's last book

The book is doomed, for nothing this good can help but get co-opted by the Man somewhere down the line. White Power Freaks (and that's a much bigger category than the Klan) will surely rip it off sometime. It's a glorious book wherein the greatest "surprise fighters" are: two women, and one gay guy-- Reba, Dottie, and Pretty Melvin.
Here I'd say I'd surely go along with Deborah and get Peter Muckley's Iceberg Slim: The Life As Art to read as a companion piece to Fox, just to help see how great this work in particular, and Slim in general, truly are. Though, mostly, for me, Lit. Crit. is foolish hype, I go along with Thumper on this one; "truly deep".

When I first read Doom Fox, I simply couldn't get over the brittle, hard writing, every phrase a left jab. Here were all the great Slim types in one compact, "coruscating" volume: the Pimp (and just watch how he burns); the Black Muckety-Muck; the twisted killer cop; the Religious Shark; and, as always, the "bitter sweet ghetto".

The prison scenes are superlative and the Nazis therein are more threatening today than even in Slim's time; now they rule the White House. Melvin is an especially complex character who grows and transforms right along, becoming almost a Malcolm X by story's end. Rebecca and Dottie form the Black (staying) Power matrix.

Poor Kong is doomed by his great heart, but there is glory flashed in the sheer telling of his tale. Doom Fox is the history of African-American experience in the 20th century... (and beyond?) It is a blues masterpiece which, as time will prove, is doomed, like its best characters, to posthumous glory. It is also the best presented, best printed, best proofed, and best rounded out of all Slim's books. Please, read it, even if you do not buy it, Muckley's work ditto.

In many ways, Doom Fox is an update version of Mama Black Widow. Just try to equate the characters there with those here.

The book stays completely within the ghetto and the prison-system here is dealt with as it had not been since Pimp or the Essays of The Naked Soul. That is, it is Robert Beck writing at his very best about what he knows better than any of us. One way of appreciating the real depth and true subtlety of Doom Fox, its overriding concerns and its masterful historical achievement is to read it in conjunction with Peter Muckley's Iceberg Slim: The Life as Art. There, there is even a plot-breakdown neatly compacted into 1 single page. It is good to see Amazon offer both conjointly at discount price. If you were me, you'd snap up the offer.

For me, this is THE VERY BEST of Slim's works. The writing is sure, the action rapid. It shows what Slim could do when not hampered by publishers, that's why it was published so late and posthumously.

The tale of the Allen Family and its generational decline has as a subtext the whole of African American History, together with much of Robert Beck's own history. The burning up, quite literally, of the evil Whispering Slim shows what Iceberg now thought of his old Pimp-self. In the character of Baptiste Rambeau, we find one of the sleaziest villians of all literature.

For all those, like Sapphire, who have accused Slim of misogyny, this is pure rebuttal here, in the characters of Reba and Dorothy, two outstanding resistance ghetto-fighters.

This is the Slim with the revolutionary consciousness first found in Death Wish, but it is a "bitter-sweet" ghetto saga. Unmatched of its kind, Doom Fox is a tour-de-force singing out to the vile ghettos of Today.

Everyone should have a copy. It is, in so many ways, the Apex of the Iceberg.

this was one of Iceberg Slim's best to me, his writing style was a lot easier to read in this book. The characters where definately unforgettable. I would recommend it.

1st I plan on reading this book for a 2nd time, which is sumptin' I have NEVER done w/ any book before. Iceberg has already had me in a trance w/PIMP, Trick Baby, Airtight Willie and me, and the Naked Soul of Iceberg Slim (I'm workin' on reading Mamma Black Widow and Long White Con). Let the trumpets blow and roll out that decadent red carpet, because honey...Doom Fox is like Whoa!!! Yes, there was even litigation saying that this was not soley written by him. I'd have to say, "Are u out your damn mind!!!" This book is filled from cover to cover with a man's life story, ups and downs; however, not our modern day happenings. Containing every emotion, Love, Hatred, Sexual lust, Revenge. Their is even a woman as well, representing this in the story (which I think is great). One of the more pleasant attributes of Slim, is when he wrote w/out any hang-ups and, he literally hands it to you in writing form, saying, "Hey this is what's on the plate it ain't looking to pretty, but u eat every morsel..ya hear?" His mere talent for weaving everything together w/ out it all turning into Cosmic Slop is uncomprehensible. O.K. dammit read the book, 4 get that 1 star rating some multiple personality wrote, and this is simply (cum on paper), but still safe and legal. Enjoy and indulge yourself. Thank You!

This man comes second to the one and only Donald Goines. I love going into their worlds and becoming the people in there books. All I can say about this book is that it is just as good as all the rest. R.I.P

It was Iceberg's last novel; apparently published posthumously. Seems to me to be in an extremely unfinished state; the dialogue is bizarre. Not bizarre in the "ebonics" manner that "Pimp" was in, but dialogue the likes of which nobody really speaks in. I can't tell if he wrote it out in what he considered educated english (in a way it is just that), or his idea was to write the story as a sketch wherin the protagonists have really pronounced argots; later changing it to be more realistic.

While his classic "Pimp" wasn't exactly what you'd call a cheerful book, this one was positively bleak in its misanthropic outlook. As a novel, it is a complete failure, but the depths he plumbs in this one (exploring his misogyny via what is apparently the story of his childhood), and the fact that it is Iceberg Slim's work, make it worth a look.

This book was too cold even for Iceberg Slim. It left me feeling down and out; almost as if we are not in control of our lives. The writing was stunning, (its Iceberg Slim) but the book was too cold. The good guy never stood a chance. Nothing went right for the fello. Slim could have let the poor guy get something right.

I'm sorry but I have NOT read this book, YET. I am a black woman and I do not see Slim's work as you see it. Evidently, Mr.Kirkus is not familiar with Slims work. I have been reading Slims work for over 10 years. Maybe you need to read Black Mama Widow to really understand 10% of this great author's work! You should also read some of Donald Goines work to understand the writings. Slim and Goines make you forget all about your world and they bring you to theirs. I know it must have been hard for them to write the way "the world" would like them to, but coming from where they were, writing WAS the only way out for them!! If a book can may you cry and laugh all at the same time; it's a winner.

"Slim tricks up his prose with patches of low-grade porn: his lame melodramatics are as offensive as his degrading view of women everywhere on display here." Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.