The Guardian

Published in London and Manchester

Author: CT

Robert Beck

Searing prose of the underworld Iceberg

  Robert Beck, who has died aged 73, was an anti-hero in the true sense of the word. Unconventional yet compelling, he gave a tragic majesty to the world of the ultimate outsider - the pimp. Born in Chicago, he adopted the street name Iceberg Slim at the age of 19 and became one of those high-earning folk heroes, an urban pimp. After 26 years in the "fast track" he'd had enough... he left behind his life as a pimp and a petty criminal and carved out a career as one of America's best-selling black authors. His first book, Pimp: The Story of My Life (1969) has sold over two million copies and is still a solid seller.

  Pimp paved the way for the spate of "streetwise" fiction that would follow, and from Yardie to Donald Goines they all owe a debt to Iceberg Slim. His books are more than just the roadmaps that all the young contenders try to follow, they have the all-important stamp of authenticity; drawing their audience to them like a magnet, but alienating writers and other cultural critics with one fell swoop.

  With searing honesty, street cool and crusading passion, Pimp delineates all the factors that pushed, pulled and propelled its author into the dog-eat-dog underworld of the pimp game. It's remarkable feat handled with vitality and detachment, in short the very qualities that took him to the top of his nefarious trade. If the subject matter had been different he might have been hailed as a major new black writing talent. Like all his books, Pimp documents the highs and lows of the hustling world with unmerciful candour. It's a rollercoaster ride whose destination is oblivion, emotional isolation and lonely self-awareness. This gnawing truth is overlooked by those who dismiss him.

  As a young man he was a "sweet boy" with "legitimate charm," but he found these qualities useless if he was to make the grade as a hustler. To succeed in the pimp world you had to have "implacability" and "control" over your emotions. He kept a "steel lid" on himself, and when he became a full-time pimp, he chillingly admitted, he didn't smile for decades. This kind of aloofness and self-control paid dividends.

  It drew the right type of women and made them easier to handle. His ice cool front gave him the distance necessary for his Machiavellian manipulations; it also made it easier for him to project emotional force with complete intensity. In the long run there was a price to pay.

  His schooling as a hustler totally changed his life, leaving him permanently branded as an outsider. He tried normality and the "straight life" but never quite managed to settle into it unobtrusively. He was always slightly out-of-synch. As a father he couldn't smile or play normally with his kids, and his past tainted more than just his private life- it also added to his cultural isolation. Inside the black community his reputation was mixed. To the kids on the street he was a "folk hero." To the spokesmen he was an embarrassment, a facet of urban life they'd hoped would disappear. Each successive book added to his status as one of the best-selling black authors in the US. After the success of The Godfather, Universal Pictures bought up the film rights to Pimp but the project was considered "too hot" and put on hold. His novel, Trick Baby: The Story of a White Negro was filmed in 1974 and drew good reviews. Despite his talent he was left floating around the margin. For anyone else the situation would look like doom and gloom. Yet he managed to turn it on its head and transcend it.

  Each successive book seemed bleaker and more brutal than the last, almost as if it reflected his heroic isolation. On the one hand he was a "local hero" and "ghetto voice". On the other he shunned street contact, and was ignored by the media.

  Sometime he welcomed his outsider status, and embraced it as an inevitable part of his nature. He chuckled wryly as he declared "I am a loner to the extent that I put my own shadow outside the door and lock it out." Towards the end he put it "to be a loner is perfect. To be gregarious and on the edge, is horrible. But when you're a loner there's a kind of perverse joy, inner joy."

Robert Beck

Iceberg Slim

August 4, 1918; died April 28, 1992.