Trendsurfing: Gangsta lit (The Times)
By David Rowan
The publishing world has given us chick lit, lad lit, even the cringe-making genre known as dad lit. But now, in search of the streetwise teen market that takes its grammatical lessons from hip-hop, it is turning to the literary flava known as gangsta lit. Built around loosely constructed parables celebrating street crime, drugs and prostitution, the fast-growing sector is moving beyond its original urban black market to suburban youngsters in search of ghetto chic. Parenting groups, naturally, are furious - and not entirely convinced by publishers' arguments that at least this obscenity-filled genre gets the kids reading.
Ghetto fiction, urban pulp fiction, street lit - whatever the label, the hustler- and gangbanger-glorifying genre goes back at least to 1969, when Iceberg Slim, the nom de plume of Robert Beck, published Pimp, an account of his lively extra-literary career running ho's. Over the past couple of years, small underground US publishing houses have been tapping a fast-growing demand for tales of double-crossing crack-dealers and gun-toting street thugs, often sold at carwashes and barber shops. But suddenly mainstream publishing houses are getting their hustle on, paying six-figure advances and roping in big-name rappers to swap the mike for the keyboard. In the next few months, we can look forward to novels by the likes of 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg, published under imprints of such mainstream houses as Simon & Schuster. "It's the largest growing and consistently growing genre," according to Louise Burke, publisher of its Pocket Books division. Just don't expect too many examples to make the Booker longlist.
Take Thug-A-Licious, the latest work by the cult gangsta novelist known as Noire (published by a Random House imprint). The basketball-playing and rapping narrator "prolly shoulda been resting at the crib on the night before a big game", but instead hangs with his "niggahs" in strip joints planning the next cold-blooded murder. Or there is Imagine This, a novel by Vickie Stringer, narrated by a jailed drug trafficker whose gangbang peeps "get their grind on for that cheddar" and don't care who gets zeroed along the way.
The big-name publishers are betting that white suburban audiences will buy into the authentic edginess of the authors' own lives. Stringer began writing while serving five years for cocaine dealing, publishing her partly autobiographical books herself and selling them on the streets. Now, as head of Triple Crown Publications - named after her crew, the Triple Crown Posse - she turns over a seven-figure sum publishing bestselling books with titles such as Crackhead and A Hustler's Wife. A number of her authors have recently signed to the mainstream publisher St Martin's Press.
More thoughtful black writers have condemned the genre for glorifying gang culture and reinforcing unhelpful stereotypes. The writer Nick Chiles recently attacked gangsta fiction as "pornography" whose sexualisation and degradation left him "thoroughly embarrassed and disgusted". Librarians' organisations too have been debating whether the books' graphic sex and casual violence are corrupting the young reader - or, more constructively, appealing to young men who would otherwise never pick up a paperback.
Still, for the new generation of hot gangsta authors such as Wahida Clark, the trend offers a quick opportunity to cash in before the literary bandwagon moves on. Although Clark, who counts among her oeuvre Payback Is a Mutha and Every Thug Needs a Lady, may not be able to enjoy all the fruits of her success. She is currently serving time in Alderson Federal Prison Camp, West Virginia, for money laundering, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud.
(The Times Magazine, August 5 2006)
The publishing world has given us chick lit, lad lit, even the cringe-making genre known as dad lit. But now, in search of the streetwise teen market that takes its grammatical lessons from hip-hop, it is turning to the literary flava known as gangsta lit. Built around loosely constructed parables celebrating street crime, drugs and prostitution, the fast-growing sector is moving beyond its original urban black market to suburban youngsters in search of ghetto chic. Parenting groups, naturally, are furious - and not entirely convinced by publishers' arguments that at least this obscenity-filled genre gets the kids reading.
Ghetto fiction, urban pulp fiction, street lit - whatever the label, the hustler- and gangbanger-glorifying genre goes back at least to 1969, when Iceberg Slim, the nom de plume of Robert Beck, published Pimp, an account of his lively extra-literary career running ho's. Over the past couple of years, small underground US publishing houses have been tapping a fast-growing demand for tales of double-crossing crack-dealers and gun-toting street thugs, often sold at carwashes and barber shops. But suddenly mainstream publishing houses are getting their hustle on, paying six-figure advances and roping in big-name rappers to swap the mike for the keyboard. In the next few months, we can look forward to novels by the likes of 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg, published under imprints of such mainstream houses as Simon & Schuster. "It's the largest growing and consistently growing genre," according to Louise Burke, publisher of its Pocket Books division. Just don't expect too many examples to make the Booker longlist.
Take Thug-A-Licious, the latest work by the cult gangsta novelist known as Noire (published by a Random House imprint). The basketball-playing and rapping narrator "prolly shoulda been resting at the crib on the night before a big game", but instead hangs with his "niggahs" in strip joints planning the next cold-blooded murder. Or there is Imagine This, a novel by Vickie Stringer, narrated by a jailed drug trafficker whose gangbang peeps "get their grind on for that cheddar" and don't care who gets zeroed along the way.
The big-name publishers are betting that white suburban audiences will buy into the authentic edginess of the authors' own lives. Stringer began writing while serving five years for cocaine dealing, publishing her partly autobiographical books herself and selling them on the streets. Now, as head of Triple Crown Publications - named after her crew, the Triple Crown Posse - she turns over a seven-figure sum publishing bestselling books with titles such as Crackhead and A Hustler's Wife. A number of her authors have recently signed to the mainstream publisher St Martin's Press.
More thoughtful black writers have condemned the genre for glorifying gang culture and reinforcing unhelpful stereotypes. The writer Nick Chiles recently attacked gangsta fiction as "pornography" whose sexualisation and degradation left him "thoroughly embarrassed and disgusted". Librarians' organisations too have been debating whether the books' graphic sex and casual violence are corrupting the young reader - or, more constructively, appealing to young men who would otherwise never pick up a paperback.
Still, for the new generation of hot gangsta authors such as Wahida Clark, the trend offers a quick opportunity to cash in before the literary bandwagon moves on. Although Clark, who counts among her oeuvre Payback Is a Mutha and Every Thug Needs a Lady, may not be able to enjoy all the fruits of her success. She is currently serving time in Alderson Federal Prison Camp, West Virginia, for money laundering, conspiracy, and mail and wire fraud.
(The Times Magazine, August 5 2006)
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