Iceberg Slim's Books | Crime Books

Biography

Iceberg Slim was the pen name of Robert Beck — born Robert Lee Maupin (1918 – 1992). Slim was born in Chicago; his father abandoned his mother when he was a child, leaving her to open a beauty shop in Milwaukee and raise Slim as a single parent.

The Life

At his mother’s beauty parlour, he first became aware of “the life”. Pimps and their whores frequented his mother’s business, and Slim became enthralled by their glamour and money.

“They were the only ones who always had the money to spend on their appearance… that’s how I got street poisoned.” (The New York Times)

Keen that her son didn’t fall into this world, his mother sent him to college in Alabama. His education didn’t last long; the college suspended him for bootlegging or gambling — depending on which commentator you believe.

According to his memoir Pimp, Slim started pimping in and around Chicago when he was 18. A career which he continued for twenty-four years despite a couple of stays in prison. During that time, he claims to have dominated over four hundred women. He beat them with wire hangers when manipulation and mind games wouldn’t control them. Slim was, as he admits, a callous and violent man.

Squaring Up

At forty-two, he decided to “square up” while serving time in Cook County jail. Pimping was no profession for a man his age.

“…because I was old. I did not want to be teased, tormented, and brutalized by young whores.” (Encyclopedia)

After leaving prison, he moved to California and took his stepfather’s surname, becoming Robert Beck. Here, he met Betty Shue, who became his common-law wife and helped him write his first semi-autobiographical novel. In 1976 Holloway House published Pimp under the pen name Iceberg Slim. Slim claimed that this was his street name as he had a slim stature and the ability to remain ice cool under pressure. In truth, he went under the name of Cavanaugh Slim. The Iceberg moniker was aspirational, as one of his characters explains:

‘I told you once, do I have to tell you a thousand times? Green-ass Nigger, to be a good pimp, you gotta be icy, cold like the inside of a dead-whore’s pussy. Now if you a bitch, a sissy or something let me know. I’ll put you in drag and you can whore for me. Stay outta my face Nigger, until you freeze up and stop that sucker grinning.’
Pimp

Brutal Writing Style

Iceberg Slim’s Books are blunt, and he pulls no punches. Slim will drag you into a deepening mire of despair, brutality and poverty as he doesn’t glamourise or embellish his experiences. They don’t come over as far-fetched or fictitious, simply a vicious reflection of his earlier life. Mama Black Widow — which some argue is his best book — charts the life of Otis Tilson, a black homosexual drag queen. The tale includes a fumbled backstreet abortion, a whore killed by a sex maniac after a ‘date’ arranged by a white pimp and a revenge killing leading to life imprisonment. Slim didn’t write feel-good books.

If that isn’t grim enough for you, Slim also recounted the racism he experienced in appalling detail.

‘…but my evening was ruined earlier. Johnny and I witnessed the most distressing thing at the theatre.’

‘An adult coon was doing the most horribly despicable things to an underage white baby girl. It’s nothing short of social catastrophe when coons can publicly violate the flower of white womanhood.’

‘Oh! How I wished for a policeman to take that black brute to the bastille. The coons have gotten completely out of hand in the North. Pete, where can one place the awful blame for this odious social condition?’
Trick Baby

Slim added a glossary of slang terms to the back of his novels. A handful includes:

Bottom woman: a pimp’s main woman, his foundation
Breaking luck: a whore’s first trick of a working day
Chilli pimp: a small-time, one whore pimp
Jasper: a lesbian
Peckerwood: a contemptuous term for white men
Square up: to get out of “the life”
Train: mass rape
Waste: to kill or murder

There is nothing pleasant about Iceberg Slim’s writing; it has all the subtlety of a riot squad van though it is shockingly believable.

Success and Notoriety

Slim became one of the best-selling black authors in the U.S. and is credited with being the Godfather of both Blaxploitation and Gangsta Rap. Both Ice-T and Ice Cube adopted his name for their own.

Despite his notoriety, being the original Gangsta didn’t play out well. The Black Panthers, a political force he respected and courted, were less than impressed by his behaviour, and his common-law wife left him. The biggest irony was that his children filed a lawsuit against his publisher thirteen years after his death. Despite writing ten novels and selling six million books, Slim died a poor man. Holloway House’s royalty checks never matched his sales figures.

The corporate establishment pimped Iceberg Slim.