Never Die Alone (Mass Market Paperback)

by Donald Goines (Author)
Key Phrases: lady bird, King David, Donald Goines, King Cobra (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"A flashing talent straight form the street of the lost." -- L' Express

Product Description
King David never let anything stand in his way, as he clawed his way out of tyhe mean streets. If it took busting an old lady's head open with a Coke bottle for her last dollar, so be it. Mixing battery acid with cocaine to gain revenge was acceptable, too. Whatever it took. Then he made it big-- only to find others had not forgotten, had no intention of forgiving. They came after him. He left behind a Cadillac and a diary, left it to a writer Donald Goines called "Paul Pawlowski." Like all Goines' novels, Never Die alone is based on truth.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Holloway House (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 087067997X
• ISBN-13: 978-0870679971
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #143,635 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Never Die Alone;" Exciting!, October 10, 2003

A Kid's Review

"Help me to my car,mister." "Don't want to die layin' in no gutter." Paul Pawlowski never expects his life to change so quickly on the way home from a bad interview with a book editor. The author's purpose in this novel is to show people how the life of a gangster is and how dangerous and risky everything you do is. Donald Goines,(author)achieves his goal. He uses perfect setting in New York. He shows the life of a ganster and uses characters that are rough, mean, and are street smart. Goines also uses strong curing to show how they talk.

Goines uses a book writer as one of the main characters who see's a black man dressed well in a black suit laying in the street bleeding to death. Obviously he had been shot and he asks the man to help him and not to let him die alone in the street. The man helps him to the hospital only to learn that his black man has died. The doctor comes out of the surgery room to reveal something that would change the young writer's life forever. He will look at life differently after his experience and Goines leaves you with an understanding of a different world.

In the book "Never Die Alone," Goines goes into great detail about how the characters make money and how they live. Most of the characters are cheaters and do not live a good life. The setting's important because it gives a better understanding of the characters and how they make do with what they have. It also shows how much money they have and how much they do not have.

Goines uses great characters in his novel and goes into great detail about their life and how they think. He carefully chose very different personalities and goes into great length on how they do not get along or do get along. One becomes very interested in the life of a gangster and gets a better understanding of the way that they work. Only also gets to understand what's important to each of the characters and what they will do to get what they want.

Goines shows in the book what kind of language that gangsters use. There is a lot of street talk in the book that you would not know if you did not read this book. You see how it is important that being a gangster is a tricky business and that you cannot trust anyone. Goines shows how important it is that you remain cool in all situations and od not mess with a gangster because he has lots of friends that will take care of you if he does not like you.

"Never Die Alone" is an Excellent book and is strongly recommended for reading. It leaves the reader wanting to learn and hear more of the story. The audience will not want to put it down. The book opens eyes to a world that you would have never imagined. It makes you realize that you have it good and compared to the way that his characters live.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Never Die Alone - Book to Film, March 22, 2004

By A Customer

Capitalizing on the popularity of hip-hop culture, rap music, and the rise of urban novels, Fox Searchlight Pictures this month (March 26th, 2004) brings `Never Die Alone' - a gritty, realistic look at the world of guns, money, power and drugs - to the big screen. `Never Die Alone' stars rapper/actor DMX in an action film set in the shady underworld of street life, where cunning and violence are the keys to success.

However, `Never Die Alone' is far from your typical shoot-em-up gangster flick. It is unique in that it is the adaptation of the highly-acclaimed novel Never Die Alone, by Donald Goines, a prolific writer regarded by many as one of the greatest urban novelists ever. While `Never Die Alone' is not the first film adaptation of Goines' work, it is surely the first to receive major studio support. As such, the movie's release marks an important milestone: never before has a big studio produced a film that so successfully captures the raw energy of modern street culture and music, while simultaneously paying homage to the legacy of black literature.

Donald Goines is well-known among urban audiences as the author of 16 novels, works that depict the life of gangsters, hustlers, pimps and drug addicts with uncanny authenticity. Goines himself was a part of this world, a longtime thief, pimp and heroin addict for much of his adult life. In fact, Goines' criminal career - which included robbing, bootlegging and running numbers - led to his writing career because it was during one of his seven prison terms that Goines discovered the work of Robert Beck, a.k.a. Iceberg Slim. Slim's novel, Pimp, was such an inspiration to Goines that he contacted the publisher of Pimp, Holloway House, while he was in prison. He began his first work in jail; Holloway House published it and the company remains the publisher of Goines, Slim and a host of other "black experience" books.

Decades after his death, Donald Goines continues to inspire writers in the `street fiction' genre that he pioneered. Many of those authors today enjoy tremendous success, and the publishing industry has caught on. Teri Woods' True to the Game, Shannon Holmes' B-More Careful, Nikki Turner's A Hustler's Wife and other novels write in the same street milieu that Goines captured, with an updated perspective. Their success has spawned a slew of urban novels, much like Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale inspired a host of similar `sistergirl' stories.

View the complete article on the aalbc.com

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars BETTER than the movie, December 11, 2004

By	M. Rias "Avid Reader" (East Chicago, IN USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The movie was such a let down. But if it wasn't for the movie I would have never discovered Donald Goines! This book was very good, so good in fact I have decided to read all 14 of his books. His use of words helps the reader finish the book in no time. He has a way of endindg each chapter and making you want more. So far King David is the cruelest character I have ever read about and this to inspired me to read on.