Mama Black Widow (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "SHE LAY BESIDE ME in the late March night, naked and crying bitterly into her pillow..." (more)
Key Phrases: barn boss, little black guy, junior went, Sweet Pea, Johnnie Mae, Madison Street (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A pimp who began writing in prison, Slim (Pimp: Story of My Life) filled his stories with the intricacies of pimping, drug dealing, numbers running and all manner of urban hustling, and between the mid-1960s and the mid '70s became the bestselling black novelist in American history. Now Old School Books has reissued his remarkable fictional memoir of a Chicago drag queen coming of age during the 1930s and '40s. At its core is the archetypal African American story: Otis Tilson's family moves from the rural South to the urban promised land of Chicago only to find more racism, abysmal slums and demeaning, low-paying jobs. Unable to provide for his family, Otis's father declines into alcoholism while the family founders, with Otis's doomed sisters and brother drifting into prostitution and petty crime. Meanwhile, the secret gay life that sets Otis apart from them is an endless nightmare of rapes, beatings and failed attempts at heterosexual love. It ain't pretty, but Slim's bracing ghetto melodrama and famously histrionic voice ("But she hesitated... for one hellish, destructive fragment of a pounding, torturous instant!") capture a core of unsentimental truth not just about homosexuality in the ghetto but also about the myths and travails of masculinity itself.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

"One of the most exciting literary revival series since the rediscovery of Jim Thompson's novels" (Playboy), Old School Books "is subtly transforming the landscape of post-war black fiction" (Bomb).

"Mama Black Widow" is the nickname of Otis Tilson, a comely and tragic black queen adrift with his brothers and sisters in the dark ghetto world of pimpdom and violent crime. His story is told in the gut-level language of the homosexual underworld--an unforgettable testament of life lived on the margins of a racist and predatory urban hell.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Holloway House (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870679759
• ISBN-13: 978-0870679759
• Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 4.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #460,552 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gritty as all get out, April 11, 2006

By	bowery boy (seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mama Black Widow (Paperback)

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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A tear jerker. FOR A MAN THAT REFUSED TO CRY!, June 23, 2006

By	P. (CHICAGO, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mama Black Widow: A Novel (Old School Books) (Paperback)

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars READ THIS AND LEARN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, August 14, 2004

By	prettyboiplaya "prettyboiplaya" (houston) - See all my reviews

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.