Customer Reviews

Mama Black Widow

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very graphic and gritty novel but not for the squeamish, faint of heart or those who want a happy ending because a happy ending you're not going to get. A friend told me to give this a try and I must say it was probably one of the most nailbiting page turning protrayals of inner city 1930s black urban life. I seriously could not put it down as much as I wanted to at some points.

The story is about Otis Tilson, otherwise known as Sally or Tilly by his cross dressing pals or Sweet Pea by the arachnoid mother of the title.

The Tilsons, a cotton picking family living on a plantation in the South, come into a windfall from a family member "up North" and pack up their bags and move to a 1930s Chicago ghetto where racism, drugs, prostitution, violence and police brutality run rampant and unchecked.

Told from the perspective of Otis at the age of ten we watch as the once happy and moderately successful family slowly unravel and fall into ruin because of Mama's obsession with money. As a result, Papa becomes a broken shell of a man, sister Carol falls in love with the wrong suitor with tragic results, sister Bessie turns to prostitution with a bleak outcome, brother Junior turns to a life of crime and murder and even Otis, grappling with his homosexuality,comes to his own unfortunate end.
Definitely on the order of Hubert Selby Jr's novels, Mama Black Widow tells a story of down and out people living in a private hell with no where to go but down. Like Selby's Requiem for A Dream, Mama Black Widow would make a compelling, gritty and heart wrencHing movie.

The only complaint I had about the novel were the excessive amount of typos even to the point where whole sentences were left out. It did add an extra gritty realism to the novel and seeing that my copy was an original pressing from 1969, I can only hope the typos were corrected in more recent pressings. I can't wait to get my hands on more Iceberg Slim.

THIS BOOK CAUGHT ME BY SURPRIZED. I SAW ICEBERG SLIM AND THOUGHT A ANOTHER, GREAT BOOK ABOUT PIMP HUSTLER'S. I WAS SHOCKED TO FIND IT TAKES PLACE IN A CHICAGO, IL. IN A NIEGHBORHOOD, I CURRENTLY LIVE IN. A SAD AND TEAR JERKING BOOK. FOR MAN THAT REFUSED TO EVER CRY. SADLY THIS BOOK IS SAID, TO BE A BOOK ABOUT HOMOSEXUALS. I STRONGLY DISAGREE. THIS BOOK IS ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BLACK FAMILY. A MOTHER WILLING TO SELL HER OWN CHILDS SOLE FOR FANCY CLOTHES AND LATEST GOOD'S. THIS BOOK HAS MADE ME LOOK AT THE WAY I TREAT PEOPLE I DONT KNOW. FORCE ME TO LOOK AT MY COMMUNITY WITH NEW EYE'S. THANK YOU ICEBERG SLIM. - PARIS. CHICAGO.

i smoke weed 24/7. and guess what this book did.......it kept me away from going to the trap to get some loud and kept me from going to the store to get me some swisher sweets. it kept me sober for 3 dayz straight!

...of what black Americans have had to endure in this country. Coming from a white woman that has always had very close African American friends and family and never really understood the deep seeded hatred many black folks have toward their history with white folks.

I was born in 1970 and always seen white/black as equal perhaps because I've always felt us as such. But this book really took me to a place where I could recognize the oppression of black folks and what a nightmare, hellish experience for so many in the early 1900's. Beck takes you right there.

A very gritty, sad and tragic book but for some reason one of my favorites. I liked this one much more than Pimp. I'm looking forward to Trick Baby.

In this novel, Iceberg Slim takes the readers into the hearts and mind of a family torn apart by change. Otis the main character a homosexual young man stuggling with his "new" and "past" life, takes him on a whirlwind ride. Slim offers indepth insight on the struggle of the some homosexual men: the depression, isolation, the issues of trying to "do what is right", and the dangers of the lifestyle. Every turn is tragic in and of itself, but the book was honest and well thought out because there isn't a happy ending for everyone. Read this and learn from the characters mistakes.

¶Most White people don't know about gritty African American author Iceberg Slim or what should be his classic book Mama Black Widow. It is the story of the tragic destruction of an African American family. It occurs in the 1930's & `40's. The family migrate from the Jim Crow South--where they share crop on a plantation--to Chicago--where Papa is prevented by the White unions from getting any decent employment. Papa badly wants to work; he can't find any job. Mama gets employment as a maid and becomes the bread winner for the family. However, the family's agrarian mentality cannot accommodate this change in gender roles. The man is supposed to be the primary provider, not the woman. Papa becomes powerless and superfluous. He dies, drunk and broken-hearted, slipping into a diabetic coma.
¶Before the story's main action, events have occurred which put this family in a position of vulnerability. There are no helpful grandparents. Papa's parents cut had him off when he married Mama. As for Mama, her story is more brutal. As a child, she sees a clansman cut her daddy's throat. She knows the identity of the White man behind the mask. This man then takes her mother as a maid, but really as a mistress, until her mother dies. Then the man, uses Mama, "as a woman" until Mama can escape a few years later.
¶In the present action, all the children in the family meet terrible ends. Carol falls in love with a White man. Meanwhile Mama practically gives Carol away to a local gangster, exchanging furniture, cloths, and money for her promise to get Carol to date him/marry him. Seeing what her mother has done, Carol discloses some things. Carol not only reveals that she is in a relationship with a White man but also announces that she is carrying his child. Enraged, Mama lands her knee into Carol's pregnant stomach leading to a miscarriage. Mama unceremoniously throws the fetus into the dumpster. The next morning, the family find Carol's body. She has bled out. The fetus is in her arms. This section of the story is so dramatic and tight that it could be made into an opera or a one-act play, and the language in the dialogue is beautiful, guttural, tragic.
¶The other brother and sister also end badly. Bessie becomes a whore, and a John brutally slashes her to death. Junior finds her mangled body and murders her pimp, who, unfortunately, is a White man. Junior is sentenced to 99 years in Joliet Correctional Facility.
¶The narrator himself is a child for all of this action, and a powerless observer. But the beginning and end of the book takes place in a later timeframe when the narrator has grown--into an effeminate gay man. (Something interesting could be said about the state of discourse the narrator uses for describing and experiencing his sexuality. When he goes on the prowl, he feels possessed by a freakish slut. Probably this language is different from how it would be today, with today's discourse on this subject.) However, frankly, this part of the book is somewhat less interesting. Everyone treats him with the greatest brutality. Eventually he commits suicide.
¶Mama Black Widow is a powerful book and one worthy of study. It is a case-in-point for the destruction of the Black family, besieged on the outside by White hatred and infiltrated on the inside by self-hatred. It should be a classic, and I heartily recommend it.

This book is truly a page turner from beginning to end!!!!!!!! this is a must keep book on my shelf so i can pass down to my Boys to read I mean this book is im still speechless WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is one of my top 10 best book ever! My good friend and I still discuss this book when making references about psychological and spiritual concepts, especially in regards to the African-American experience in the U.S. It is a powerful book on how parenting and enviromental factors influence children....while trying to answer, to some regard, the old nature vs nurture argument. Powerful book!! I have never forgotten Sweat-Pea in the 20+ years since I originally read it!

Not for the weak at heart. Beck is much more graphic than he was in "Pimp..." in this tale of the tragic fall of a black family in the Chicago ghetto of the 30's as told by the youngest child who is fighting a losing battle against his own homosexuality. This one gave me a few sleepless nights but I couldn't resist coming back for more.

Its 2006 and I just suggested this book to someone because I can never forget this book. In fact, everyone that I have recommended this book to, still comes to me for book suggestions. However, anything that I've suggested doesn't compare to this page-turner. Let's just put it out there - its grimey, plain and simple. You keep reading because you can't actually believe this has happened to someone. When my bookclub read this book, one of the participants suggested we read a happier book next time. This book is not for someone looking for a "happy" book.