Few writers are as deserving of the phrase “exploded onto the scene” as Iceberg Slim.
The man wrote novels that are as controversial as they are important, exploring the harsh reality of what it meant to be black on the mean streets of America in the 60s and 70s.
However, even though his novels sold millions of copies, his legacy is one that is dogged by controversy and exploitation, not just because of their content, but because of the way he was treated by his own publisher.
You’re about to discover the incredible tale of Iceberg Slim; street pimp, million-copy bestselling author, and man who died without a penny to his name…
On the Path to Becoming the Legendary Iceberg Slim
Born in Chicago in 1918, to parents who were seeking to escape the American South for a better life in the northern cities (A.K.A. The Great Migration), Robert, the boy who would become Iceberg Slim, did not get the best start in life.
His father split soon after he was born, and his mother never settled down while Slim was growing up. Both incidents would have a huge impact on his books, as his characters were always defined by their lack of father figures and their hatred of their own mothers.
(Although Slim would reconcile with his mother later in life, and adopt her married surname, “Beck”, as a token of goodwill.)
While living with his mother in Milwaukee, the young Robert started to hang with an older crowd. A crowd that would introduce the 18-year-old to The Game – a way of making money by taking advantage of others. Of crime and hustling that seemed like the only way for black men to win against their white rivals.
And in The Game, The Pimp is king.
They earn the most money, wear the best threads, and drive the hippest cars. As anyone who has seen the 1973 classic The Mack knows, everybody respects a pimp on the streets.
For young Robert, who had spent most of his life poor and was running short cons for a couple bucks a pop, the life of a pimp was an alluring one.
And it didn’t take long for him to take to it.
In twenty years, he would earn the nickname Cavanaugh Slim, take advantage of a large “stable” of prostitutes, and make a name for himself in the criminal underworld. He’d also get heavily addicted to cocaine, and be in and out of jail so often that there was talk of a revolving door being installed, just for him.
It wasn’t a stable career, either. Iceberg Slim would regularly find himself either broke or in trouble with the law, often at the same time. He knew something had to change.
It did. In a big way.
A Legend Born Out of Poverty and Despair
When middle-aged, broke, desperate exterminator Robert Beck walked into Holloway House with his manuscript in 1967, a different man would walk out.
His name was Iceberg Slim.
And his most famous work, Pimp: The Story of my Life, had just been bought by Holloway House, a publisher looking to get writers who could give them stories told from a black perspective.
The Watts Riots had just happened a couple years earlier. The headlines were full of the problems faced by African Americans. Inequality, police brutality, joblessness, and residential segregation were everywhere.
It was the perfect time for someone like Iceberg Slim.
With Pimp, Slim told a highly-fictionalised account of his life on the streets. In it, he made himself larger-than-life. A hero that any young street kid could aspire to be. An ice cool player that made The Game his own.
But what he did most of all was to speak to his people with a voice that was all-too real.
“It was black ultra realism — totally street cool and unflinchingly confessional. It allowed the reader a glimpse into a lifestyle that was alien to most blacks, never mind most whites,” said rapper Ice-T in his introduction to Slim’s last novel, Doom Fox.
It was this realism, mixed with the fantasy of a black man beating the system at its own game, that made the book a smash hit. It spoke to people just like Slim. People who lived on the streets and faced the harshness of being black in 1960s and 1970s America every day of their lives.
And it would go on to sell millions of copies.
But not in bookstores.
Like his protege Donald Goines, Iceberg Slim’s books were sold at newsstands, candy stores, and head shops in urban areas. Places that his target market would frequent.
In less than two years, Iceberg Slim’s first book would sell over two million copies and cement his place in literary history. Pimp would set the template for many a film, rap song, and book to come.
Scholar Justin Gifford, in his biography Street Poison, would call Iceberg Slim “one of the most influential renegades of the 20th century”.
Yet with all this success, Iceberg Slim’s work is still as controversial as they come, even over 50 years later.
The Shocking, the Brutal, the Bloody, & the Uncomfortable
Iceberg Slim’s books can be hard to get through for a modern reader.
Most of them deal with the idea of black masculinity and Slim’s definition of it. They talk about how it is warped or destroyed by American society of the time, and how crime, pimping, and exploitation of women are ways of reclaiming it.
His works are shocking and unflinchingly brutal. There is no room for empathy or weakness in the world of Iceberg Slim.
His protagonists are out for number one. The only way they can achieve their goals is through exploiting those around them.
This can lead to scenes or scenarios that modern readers are likely to find awfully misogynist or homophobic. Mama Black Widow, a novel centring on a young black transexual named Otis, is an especially uncomfortable read at times.
(Otis does, however, find protection and community in Bronzeville’s gay circle.)
In his pre-face to Pimp, Slim states:
“The account of my brutality and cunning as a pimp will fill many of you with revulsion, however if one intelligent valuable young man or woman can be saved from the destructive slime then the displeasure I have given will have been outweighed by that individual’s use of his potential in a socially constructive manner.”
He claimed to be writing the book as a way to “purge” himself from the wrongs he committed. And while this may have been the case, it is also true that many a young black kid would look up to Slim’s Pimp persona.
In later life, Iceberg Slim would become an intellectual. He would give talks at universities. And his later books were collections of essays and think pieces more than they were pulp novels.
Unfortunately, this would lead to a decline in his readership. His audience wanted the legendary pimp Iceberg Slim. They wanted the larger-than-life hustler that got one over on The Man and made money by cheating the system.
Not the soft-spoken, well-dressed intellectual that turned up to give intelligent lectures at prestigious universities.
And when you combine his declining readership with what else was happening to Iceberg Slim, you have a recipe for disaster…
Exploitation in More Ways that One
Iceberg Slim’s writing would evolve over the years, as any good artist’s work does. It would become more politically charged, and he would write opinion pieces on the state of his country as he saw it.
He would even release a spoken word album called Reflections in 1976, that has his smooth, velvety tones share with the listener his despair, anguish, and regrets.
But even though he was a well-known figure with millions of sales to his name, Iceberg Slim was broke.
It isn’t clear what exactly happened.
According to Slim himself, Holloway House never really paid him what he was due. They exploited him, making bank off of his book sales while paying him a pittance in return.
Even when one of Slim’s books was made in a movie during the Blaxploitation craze of the 70s, it was made entirely without his involvement. His publisher did everything, not even letting him consult on the script.
The resulting film was a box office disaster that was critically panned. It is an awkward film, with a seriously uncomfortable lead performance by an actor way out of his depth, losing much of the complexity of the novel.
It did Slim’s pockets no favours, either.
His animosity towards his publisher was never ironed out, and Iceberg Slim would live the remainder of his life in a small apartment, where he would die in 1992 from complications of diabetes.
Tragically, he was almost as broke as when he died as he was at 18, when he ran short cons on the street for a few bucks at a time.
An Undeniable Legacy
Whatever you may think of Iceberg Slim’s books, it is hard to deny their impact or their staying power.
With over six million books sold, he’s one of the bestselling black authors of all time. His works deserve to be read. They give a glimpse into a brutal life – a life that for many, was a reality of their existence.
As he grew more political, met the Black Panthers, and started to critique the system in his essays and lectures, his writing matured. Some of his most fascinating work happened later in his career, mostly because it gives us glimpses at the reality of Robert Beck, rather than the grand fantasy of Iceberg Slim that he created in Pimp.
He also deserved to be more successful and financially stable during his lifetime. The tale of the artist being cheated out of their rightful earnings is an old one. Unfortunately, this writer doesn’t see it changing anytime soon.
But we can take solace in the fact that his works are still readily available…
And while he may not have the same staying power as Chester Himes or James Baldwin, it’s hard to deny the myth and legend that is Iceberg Slim.
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