Publisher Description
Mama Black Widow tells the tragic story of Otis Tilson, a stunning black drag queen trapped in a cruel queer ghetto underworld. In hopes of escaping the racial bigotry and economic injustice of the South, Otis' family journeys north from their plantation to an urban promised land. Once in Chicago, Otis and his siblings become prisoners to a wasteland of violence, crime, prostitution, and rape. This is the gut-wrenching tale of the destruction of a family and the truest portrayal of homosexuality in the ghetto ever told.
Download and start listening now!
“Remarkable…It ain’t pretty, but Slim’s bracing ghetto
melodrama and famously histrionic voice capture a core of unsentimental truth
not just about homosexuality in the ghetto but also about the myths and
travails of masculinity itself.”
—
Publishers Weekly
About Iceberg Slim
Iceberg Slim (1918–1992), a.k.a. Robert Beck, was born in Chicago and initiated into the life of the pimp at age eighteen. He briefly attended the Tuskegee Institute but dropped out to return to the streets of the South Side, where he remained, pimping, until he was forty-two. After several stints in jail, culminating in a ten-month stay in Cook County, he decided to give up the life and turned to writing. With a family to feed, he folded his life into the pages of Pimp, which emerged as a definitive chronicle of street life. Slim was catapulted into the public eye as a new American hero, known for speaking the truth whether that truth was ugly, sexy, rude, or blunt. He published six more books based on his life and different aspects of the ghetto black, pimp community. Slim died at age seventy-three in 1992, one day before the Los Angeles riots.
About Bobby Spears
Bobby Spears Jr. is a multimedia personality whose career has spanned the arenas of radio, theater, and the World Wide Web. In translating his distinctive brand to the mainstream, he has perfected the unique ability to captivate wider, more diverse audiences without compromising authenticity. Bobby holds a BA in communications from Howard University and is currently a radio personality on WURD Radio.