Mama Black Widow

¶Most White people don't know about gritty African American author Iceberg Slim or what should be his classic book Mama Black Widow. It is the story of the tragic destruction of an African American family. It occurs in the 1930's & `40's. The family migrate from the Jim Crow South--where they share crop on a plantation--to Chicago--where Papa is prevented by the White unions from getting any decent employment. Papa badly wants to work; he can't find any job. Mama gets employment as a maid and becomes the bread winner for the family. However, the family's agrarian mentality cannot accommodate this change in gender roles. The man is supposed to be the primary provider, not the woman. Papa becomes powerless and superfluous. He dies, drunk and broken-hearted, slipping into a diabetic coma.¶Before the story's main action, events have occurred which put this family in a position of vulnerability. There are no helpful grandparents. Papa's parents cut had him off when he married Mama. As for Mama, her story is more brutal. As a child, she sees a clansman cut her daddy's throat. She knows the identity of the White man behind the mask. This man then takes her mother as a maid, but really as a mistress, until her mother dies. Then the man, uses Mama, "as a woman" until Mama can escape a few years later. ¶In the present action, all the children in the family meet terrible ends. Carol falls in love with a White man. Meanwhile Mama practically gives Carol away to a local gangster, exchanging furniture, cloths, and money for her promise to get Carol to date him/marry him. Seeing what her mother has done, Carol discloses some things. Carol not only reveals that she is in a relationship with a White man but also announces that she is carrying his child. Enraged, Mama lands her knee into Carol's pregnant stomach leading to a miscarriage. Mama unceremoniously throws the fetus into the dumpster. The next morning, the family find Carol's body. She has bled out. The fetus is in her arms. This section of the story is so dramatic and tight that it could be made into an opera or a one-act play, and the language in the dialogue is beautiful, guttural, tragic. ¶The other brother and sister also end badly. Bessie becomes a whore, and a John brutally slashes her to death. Junior finds her mangled body and murders her pimp, who, unfortunately, is a White man. Junior is sentenced to 99 years in Joliet Correctional Facility. ¶The narrator himself is a child for all of this action, and a powerless observer. But the beginning and end of the book takes place in a later timeframe when the narrator has grown--into an effeminate gay man. (Something interesting could be said about the state of discourse the narrator uses for describing and experiencing his sexuality. When he goes on the prowl, he feels possessed by a freakish slut. Probably this language is different from how it would be today, with today's discourse on this subject.) However, frankly, this part of the book is somewhat less interesting. Everyone treats him with the greatest brutality. Eventually he commits suicide. ¶Mama Black Widow is a powerful book and one worthy of study. It is a case-in-point for the destruction of the Black family, besieged on the outside by White hatred and infiltrated on the inside by self-hatred. It should be a classic, and I heartily recommend it.

I gave this book five stars because iceberg slim did a good job explaining,how much a father is important in a family. The story of Otis tilson, was tragic when he move to Chicago from the plantation and how his family went down hill. The reason his family was destroy because when you're family goes from patriarch to matriarch you have no discipline in the household. Otis mother should have supported her husband because it was not his fault he couldn't get a job, in the Jim crow era. She tried his manhood in front of there children and she turned the old son against him. Otis was molested at a young age because he was lonely and didn't have the proper supervision, one of the twins turn into a harlot because she didn't have the discipline because the father was not there and the oldest son turn to the streets. The city of Chicago really got the best of the tilson family. This matriarch household is still prevalent to this day in the black community because of the government and we need to bring fathers in control of the household. I think the reason homosexuality exists is because lack of father's and Otis mentioned in the book when he said that he needed attention from a man but his mother ran his dad off. One more thing before I go. Black mama widow also shows you how the mother mess up her Otis by sheltering him and not let him take risk, failed at something but to keep trying to succeed in life. I think All African Americans should read this book. I will start to read most ice Berg slim books and give y'all my perspective on them.

Otis Tilson, a drag queen, recalls his life as a child on a Southern cotton plantation and of his families move in 1936 to the supposed Utopia of Chicago. His domineering and controlling Mama, who forced the move to Chicago,aids and abets the destruction of her family as much as the cruel and unforgiving ghetto they live in..... This is realism at its most brutal ; it hits you full on, but there is also huge depth to this novel. The disintegration of a family and humanity; the destruction of an honest father who wants no more than to provide for his family are every bit as powerful as Steinbeck's depiction of the collapse of the Joads in 'Grapes of Wrath' (though the Mama's were of a different type !) And all portrayed against the realism of a corrupt police force (one that has been well recorded since) and the denial of any hope simply due to being black, and the festering wound that this left and leaves. The book opens and ends in 1968/9 where Otis learns of Martin Luther Kings murder ; where evil once again triumphs over innocence and peaceful human ways of finding justice are destroyed. I found 'Mama Black Widow' far more powerful and real than James Baldwin's 'Another Country' , which gets far more recognition-and follows broadly similar themes- than Iceberg Slim's novel. I would go as far as to say that 'Mama Black Widow' is the novel James Baldwin tried to write when he wrote 'Another Country'. A brutal and sympathetic book that deserves far more widespread recognition and reading.

Man...I have some complex thoughts on this book, but the bottom line is that it's astounding. As a writer and editor, I believe the structure of the novel would have benefited from some more editing, and as an LGBT person I do acknowledge the multitude of age-old stereotypes, including Otis's predictable fate (I feel it's a fairly accurate snapshot of LGBT life and culture in the 60s mixed with some misconceptions common to outsiders). However, it's still an excellent work, and I can't even find the words to explain why. There's so much powerful emotion in it. A masterwork, honestly.Side note--it has a lot of potentially triggering content like rape, CSA, and of course the racism Otis and his family go through (the bleakness is basically the point of the book), so keep that in mind.

Having recently discovered Iceberg Slim, I have found his writing extremely emotive and powerful overall, but was slightly disappointed with this particular read. There didn't really seem to be much story - just a lot of rambling from the main character (a gay drag queen) and much of the dialogue (especially 'Mama') was incredibly hard to read/translate due to the phonetic nature. It won't put me off trying more of Iceberg's books, but I think if this was the first book readers tried, they could well miss out on some of the better ones available.

I have just finished reading "Mama Black Widow" for the second time. Iceberg Slim (real name Robert Beck) takes you right into the heart of his and the character's world. I devoured it page after page like a ravenous dog eager for the next mouthful. If I could describe Slim's writing I would say it is like "Shakespeare on crack cocaine". It tells of a time way before political correctness and racial equality. Although I am a white woman I identified at times with the "widow" although for entirely different reasons you would imagine. "Mama" - although at times a demon with a dialogue so sharp it could cut your heart into pieces (and it did so with members of her family) is a woman who was deeply wronged throughout her life and her self awareness is so acute it strangles her everyday existence. She hates working for the "dirty white folks" who demean and belittle her for a pittance and she rages at her family day in day out because she wants a better life for them. In doing so she drives the people she loves most away and emasculates her own husband when she effectively emotionally castrates him. As a child Otis - (the character who narrates the story of his own and his family's tortured lives) sees and hears things that takes his childhood away from him - splintering him into the fragmented human being he becomes. As he reaches sexual maturity he becomes aware of an urgent desire to cross dress and get off with guys. And so the "freak" Sally is born - the woman inside of him who is eager for love and tries to find it in gay bars and drinking joints in the ghetto. I don't want to spoil it - you can read it for yourself. It's totally unforgettable and although I never knew Otis and never will I will never forget him.

Hard hitting, controversial, moving and thought provoking. Documents the contradictory struggle with self and identity from a very unique cultural angle.

Uncompromising Iceberg Slim style.Thoroughly enjoyed.

Item arrived fast and in very good condition. No page missing, no scratch just the feel of old book(that I love)! I was very pleased because I was looking for that book in english for long time