Marada the She Wolf by John Bolton

'Marada the She-Wolf'
by John Bolton
from Epic Illustrated No. 11, April 1982
colorized version from 'Marada the She Wolf' graphic novel compilation 
Titan Books, September 2013

Book Review: To Reach A Dream

Book Review: 'To Reach A Dream' by Nathan C. Heard

5 / 5 Stars

‘To Reach A Dream’ was published by Signet in July, 1973. The outstanding cover illustration is uncredited. 

While reading this review, it is very helpful to listen to 'Happiness is Just Around the Bend' (1974) by 'The Main Ingredient'. 

Nathan C. Heard (1936 - 2004) was born and grew up in poverty in Newark, New Jersey. As a young man he spent eight years in Trenton State Prison on an armed robbery charge, where, to pass the time, he read paperback novels. Heard was determined to be a writer, and in 1968, just one month before his release from prison, he published the novel ‘Howard Street’. It was a bestseller and brought Heard critical acclaim from literary figures.

Heard was a faculty member at Fresno State College and Rutgers University before becoming a freelancer and a speechwriter to Newark mayor Kenneth Gibson. He had a supporting role as ‘Big Pink’ in the 1973 Blacksploitation film ‘Gordon’s War’.

Along with ‘Howard Street’ and ‘To Reach A Dream’, Heard published ‘A Cold Fire Burning’ (1974), ‘When Shadows Fall’ (1977), and ‘House Of Slammers’ (1983).

[All of these novels are, sadly, out of print, and used copies fetch very high prices.]
 
Heard wrote about ghetto life and its tribulations in a straightforward, clear prose style; in my opinion, his writing is superior to that of Iceberg Slim, Donald Goines, and even Chester Himes. Much of the material in Heard’s novels is based on his own experiences, bringing a note of legitimacy to the dialogue, the plotting, and the exposition that you can’t find in other novels of the genre.

‘Dream’ is set in Newark the early 70s, and opens with straight-up Ghetto Action: an act of violence that will leave you wincing. 

In short order we are introduced to Bart Kedar Enos, the protagonist. Bart is young, black, good-looking, and ambitious. He’s also utterly self-centered and amoral.

Born and raised on Court Street on Newark, Bart is a modestly successful pimp, earning a living off his girlfriend Anita. But Bart has greater ambitions than to be just another striving hustler. He wants to reach the ranks of the major players, pimps like Po Bob, Hollywood, Chico, Longhair, Black Rudy, and Sugar Shaw, and to have his own Cadillac parked outside Danny’s nightclub. And he has a plan to achieve his Dream…..

Bart obtains a job as a live-in handyman to Sarah Hamilton, a widowed, middle-aged black woman who ‘passes’ for white. It’s only a matter of time before Bart is doing a lot more for his boss than fixing the shelving in her mansion in the suburbs, and his work performance for Sarah is so…satisfactory….that soon he is enjoying access to the clothes and cars and financial security that makes real his Dream.

But things have a way of getting complicated….and in Bart’s case, the complications will force him to make some difficult decisions about himself, and world he seeks to escape.

Despite being only 156 pages long, ‘Dream’ is a more engrossing novel than the majority of novels - of any genre - I have ever read. It’s a classic of modern American realism, fully immersing the reader in the culture of the ghetto and its players. And while Bart Enos is by no means a hero, ‘Dream’ succeeds in making his attitudes and actions understandable to someone unfamiliar with the atmosphere of poverty and desperation that governs ghetto life.

Heard’s dialogue has the ring of authenticity, as in this conversation between two pimps:

“How that nigga get that babe to marry him ?” Hollywood asked in low tones.

Longhair stanced with his left arm akimbo. “Prob’ ly ate her pussy, that’s how." He pushed back his toupee which had slipped forward onto his forehead. “Betcha he won’t keep the bitch two months; she got too much class for a chump like him.”

Hollywood laughed, but seeing his chance for a dig at Longhair, said, “You eat pussy too, sucka. Louise told on you.”

“You tellin’ a muthafuckin’ lie if you say I eat it – and Louise ain’t told you no such shit as that…..That who’e knew I’d kill her if she said some shit like that about me. If I don’t git it from the nut, baby, then I don’t need it.”

Hollywood’s teeth flashed brilliant. “Maybe that’s why she ran away from yo’ ass; maybe you shoulda ate some….” 

Unlike Heard’s other novels, all of which are out of print, copies of ‘To Reach A Dream’ can be found for reasonable prices (i.e., under $12). If you are a fan of ghetto fiction, or just good fiction per se, then getting a copy is a worthwhile decision.

The Bus

'The Bus' by Paul Kirchner

New York: Year Zero issue 2

New York: Year Zero
by Ricardo Barreiro (script) and Juan Zanotto (art)
Eclipse Comics
Issue 2, August 1988

Issue One is here.

Issue two features all kinds of cool events in the New York City of 'Year Zero': 

......a psychotic sniper......

.......a gang of lesbians (!) who rob the unwary...

.......flesh-eating rats.......

......crematory trucks.......... 

..........and an ultra-violet street shootout. What more Ghetto Action can you ask from a sci-fi comic ?!

Book Review: Go Down Dead

Book Review: 'Go Down Dead' by Shane Stevens

 

5 / 5 Stars

In 1947, Irving Schulman published what is arguably the progenitor volume of the ‘teen street gang’ genre of literature with ‘The Amboy Dukes’, a novel about a group of Jewish teens involved in violence and mayhem on the streets of Brooklyn. The book was a hit, and led to two sequels, as well as a 1951 feature film, titled ‘City Across the River’.

The genre was further defined in 1958, with the publication of Harlan Ellison’s novel ‘Web of the City’ / ‘Rumble’, based on his experiences (so he claimed) with an Italian street gang in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn.

In 1959, Warren Miller published his novel ‘The Cool World’, which put the spotlight on black gangs.

‘Cool World’ was about a teenager and gang leader in the New York City ghetto named ‘Duke’ Custis. ‘Cool’ was set in the summer months, and followed Duke Custis’s efforts to prepare his gang, the Royal Crocadiles, for an upcoming rumble with their hated rivals, the Wolves. Miller’s novel was a first-person narrative related in Ebonics: "The reason summer time such a gas an a fake is because it come on like it gonna last for ever but you know it aint."

Shane Stevens, who, like Shulman, Miller, and Ellison, is white (an unwitting Chester Himes was so taken with ‘Go Down Dead’ that he praised Stevens as the ‘greatest black novelist in Harlem’), also got aboard the teen street gang genre with ‘Go Down Dead’ (1967; this Pocket Books paperback version was published in 1968). 

‘Go’ borrows pretty heavily from ‘The Cool World’, so much so that it could be argued that it’s a plagiarized version of Miller’s novel.

In ‘Go’, which is set in Harlem in the mid-60s, the protagonist is Adam Clayton Henry, who goes by his street name of ‘King’ Henry. As with Miller’s novel, ‘Go’ uses a first-person narrative related in Ebonics.

King is only sixteen, but his smarts and ambition have led him to be the leader of the Playboys, Harlem’s toughest street gang. The Playboys have been locked in a vicious war with a neighboring white gang, known as the Tigers; as the atrocities committed by each warring party increase in number and severity, King decides it’s time for a decisive rumble.

‘Go’ takes place over an eight-day interval, and follows King Henry as he tries to procure the armaments that will give the Playboys the edge in the upcoming battle. Henry’s efforts lead to encounters with some of the hustlers, criminals, whores, and gangsters who earn their living on the mean, desperate streets of Harlem. 

More so than Miller, Stevens focuses his narrative on the down-and-dirty aspects of ghetto life: plentiful cheap-and-easy sex, violence dished out by racist cops (referred to as ‘headbreakers’), scheming preachers, con men, slumming white hippie chicks infatuated with black men and their ‘tools’, and the despair that underlies every day spent in the confines of the ghetto.

Some of Stevens’ observations are quite contrived and exploitative: in one instance, King Henry observes that ghetto prostitutes use saran wrap as an impromptu condom (!), and 7-Up as an improvised douche, contrivances clearly designed to give the readers of the mid-60s the sort of illicit thrill that nowadays drives so many affluent suburban boys to listen to Gangsta Rap music. 

I won’t disclose any spoilers, save to say that Stevens does a good job of building up the suspense as the latter chapters lead to the decisive rumble. And, as should be the case with Ghetto Action literature, there is no fairy tale, uplifting ending.

‘Go Down Dead’, despite its derivative nature, remains a classic of teen street gang / urban lit. While both the original hardbound and paperback versions are available, they are unfortunately rather steeply priced, starting as $10 for copies in mediocre condition. If you can find a copy on the used bookstore shelves for less, by all means grab it.

Heavy Metal May 1984

'Heavy Metal' magazine May 1984

 

May, 1984, and in heavy rotation on MTV is 'Ever Changing Moods' by the Style Council, the band formed by former Jam member Paul Weller.

The latest issue of Heavy Metal magazine is out, featuring a front cover by Luis Royo and a back cover by Peter Sato.

The contents of the magazine offer continuing installments of 'The Third Incal' by Jodorowsky and Moebius; 'Tex Arcana' by Findley; 'Salammbo II' by Druillet; a particularly violent episode by Tamburini and Liberatore's 'Ranxerox'; a new feature, 'The Railways', by Schuiten and and Renard.

This is one of the better issues of HM for 1984, with a number of good one-shot comics included in the contents. One of these, Pepe Moreno's 'Bunker 6A', is posted, below, along with a new episode of Charles Burns's 'El Borbah: Living in the Ice Age'.