[.ca] Mama Black Widow (ISBN 0870679317)

ok book:
I found this book to be a good read, I agree it was very sad to see how the streets of chicago treated this family that was once a loving family. It also shows what money can do to a family. I can't say that everyone will enjoy this book I have passed it around to some of my friends and they have different opinions on this book. I will say I enjoyed it!!

Suffering:
This book is an amazing tragedy, about how the city took a family from the south, and literally destroyed them, from every angle imaginable (in spirit and in heart). Iceberg is able to capture the pain dramatically.

Excellent book:
Hey brothas and sistas out there....This is tonio from columbus georgia. I'm sure all of u know how great Donald Goines is....although there will never be another like Donald...Iceberg Slim is bad also. Get this book...it's the epitome of heartwarming,sadness,and despair. The sad part is it's actually based on a true story...read my brothas and sistas...u wont put it down!

Engaging Social Commentary in the Guise of a Mediocre Novel:
In Mama Black Widow, Iceberg Slim tells the story of Otis Tilson, "an incredibly comely and tragic homosexual queen." The book is compelling for two reasons: its vivid recounting of a Black family's relocation from rural Mississippi to Chicago during the Great Migration of the 1920s, and its colorful portrayal of Chicago's homosexual underworld in the 1940s and 1950s. Slim's treatment of the latter is especially intriguing; although he treats homosexuality as an illness, he casts his gay characters, in view of their numerous misfortunes, as objects of sympathy. The author's ghetto insight culminates in the theme of Mama Black Widow, that Tilson's homosexuality is the result of childhood molestation and his overbearing mother. Despite these elements, and subplots involving a promiscuous preacher, interracial dating and Tilson's mother's attempt to pimp her own daughter, the story falls flat. As the novel progresses it appears that Slim loses interest in his characters, opting to kill them off when convenient. Ultimately the reader is left wondering more if Slim was a victim of deadlines than if Tilson was a victim of his past.