Black!: Three Short Novels

by Clarence Cooper Jr.

Overview

Black! is part of Norton's Old School Books series of reprinted pulp fiction by black authors.

Black! brings together three short novels by Clarence Cooper, Jr., a rediscovered genius of African-American writing. "The Dark Messenger" is a short, sizzling novel in which a reporter for a black newspaper discovers that truth and justice are no match for the next handout from the corrupt powers that be. "Yet Prices Follow" and "Yet We Many" are both sardonic crime novellas set in the worlds of the numbers racket and Black Muslims, respectively. All of them demonstrate the hard-edged, ultra-hip style of realism that was Clarence Cooper's trademark.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393315417
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/17/1997
Series:	Old School Books Series
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Born in Detroit in 1934, Clarence Copper, Jr., wrote The Scene while incarcerated and addicted and published it in 1960. Five novels followed in his trouble life, including Weed (1963) and The Farm (1968). He died penniless and alone in New York City in 1978.

Editorial Reviews

An unknown African American novelist whose life took an unfortunate plunge (ironically after enthusiastic reviews for his first work, The Scene, in 1961), Cooper spent much of his life in jail, where he used the time to write. Black! is a collection of three novellas, originally dubbed "pulp fiction" upon their low-budget publication in the early 1960s. These works have now attained a loftier status as cultural artifacts that reveal much about the experiences of many African Americans in the early days of the civil rights movement. In "The Dark Messenger," the longest selection, a young, very dark-skinned reporter for a popular "Negro paper" is sickened to learn of the corruption and dishonesty at every level of the media business. In the most comic piece, "Yet Princes Follow," a simple fellow, Robert Joe Teese, "the biggest, blackest, ugliest man anybody ever saw," lets the goodness in his soul shine through the shady goings-on in the numbers racket that he helps to run. And "Not We Many," in first-person narration, tells of a young man with a white mother confronting his doubts about the Islamic beliefs and practices he has turned to in confusion over his racial identity. All three stories deliver direct messages about the necessity for the individual to think for him- or herself, showing that Cooper, who died in 1979, ultimately upheld the most American of values. (Feb.) FYI: Black! is part of Norton's Old School Books series of reprinted pulp fiction by black authors.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly