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A Profile of
Donald Goines
(a.k.a. Al C. Clark)
 Donald Writes No More: A Biography of Donald GoinesClick to order via Amazon
ISBN: 087067949X Donald Goines was all of these things. He started as a kid, the product of a middle-class family. After high school he joined the Navy, and discovered the heroin that would rule the remainder of his life. On the streets, he turned to writing when he was straight enough to keep at it. He used the language of the streets and wrote of the streets and its people. His success was immediate and exciting, But eventually the streets claimed him. He was murdered as he sat writing a new book. Here for the first time is the completed story. |
To truly appreciate, as well as, recognize Donald Goines, the Author, there is no need to mention, what he did, how he lived, or why he died. It is only necessary to acknowledge the fact that although his time line will read, born 1936 (in Detroit, Michigan), deceased 1974; his genius as a writer has landed him a place in literary immortality.
To do, what Donald Goines did, write sixteen books in five years is a feat that rivals Wilt Chamberlain averaging over fifty points a game for an entire professional basketball season. Or Jim Brown rushing for twelve thousand yards in 9 professional football seasons. The emphasis on the word professional is to indicate that these men performed at an exceptionally eminent level against those deemed to be the very best. And they shined brighter than all that competed with and against them. Donald Goines epitomized professionalism in his short career as a writer.
What Donald Goines did, just isn’t accomplished all that often. But, more importantly, sixteen substantial works that paint a picture of life on the streets that can and will leave one’s mind awestruck. From Dopefiend, which takes you deep inside the psyche of not only the drug addict, but the sick and twisted life of a drug dealer. Or, Black Girl Lost, a story about a young teenager who somehow finds love amidst the turmoil of alcoholism, abuse, drugs, and murder. To a four book series based on the visions and dreams of Kenyatta. A man Donald crafted to be the savior of his people. Not a savior in the biblical sense in terms of asking Christ for salvation, but a savior to all those trapped within the walls of the ghetto slums. Kenyatta was portrayed as a savior from police brutality. A savior in his efforts to eradicate the drugs that were destroying his people. A savior in his desire to give hope to those who had lost all thoughts of ever having anything more than what life had so unceremoniously left for them; little to nothing.
Indeed, Donald Goines gift was in painting a picture that had nothing to do with glorifying lifestyles that society looks down upon. After all, murderers, pimps, prostitutes, thieves, and drug addicts aren’t viewed as distinguished career options. What he did do was recount allegories based on what was authentic to him. Only because all of what Donald Goines wrote about, he himself had lived to some degree, at some point in his lifetime.
The glamour of easy money, fast women, and fine cars, was not coupled with fairy tale endings. If you’re looking for a rainbow in the sky and the pot of gold at the end, you won’t find it while reading Donald Goines. His works are as real as a blue sky and honest as a mother’s love.
So, how do we honor Donald Goines, the Author? Do we give him his own word? After all commentators all over the country refer to a great basketball move as being, Jordanesque! Or do we build a statue, a monument, a high school, or better still, name a street after him? Or do we just insure that the next generation of readers has the same opportunity as generations before them, to experience the writings of Donald Goines.
Donald Goines wrote with a passion that leaves no doubt about his love for the written word and his desire to share with all, a glimpse inside his own unique and very special world. Marvelous!
Profile written by by Scott Haskins
Low Road: The Life
and Legacy of Donald Goines
Click to order via
Amazon
ISBN: 0312291248
Format: Hardcover, 224pp
Pub. Date: October 2004
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Read a AALBC.com review of Low Road
Donald Goines Was a Pimp, A Truck Driver, a heroin addict, a factory worker, and a career criminal. He was also one of the world's most popular contemporary African-American writers. Having published sixteen novels, including Whoreson, Dopefiend, and Daddy Cool, Goines developed a unique brand of "street narrative" and "ghetto realism" that marked him as the original street writer. Now, in the first in-depth biography of Goines's life, author Eddie B. Allen, Jr., explores exactly how one man could make the transition from street hustler to bestselling author. With exclusive access to many of Goines's personal letters, treatments from unwritten books, photographs, and family members, Allen uncovers Goines's personal experiences with drugs, prostitutes, prison, and urban violence. Fans of Goines's novels will note a dramatic parallelism between his life and his fictional tales.
Donald Goines' Novels
Never Die Alone
Click to order via
Amazon
ISBN: 087067997X
Format: Paperback, 224pp
Pub. Date: September 2000
Publisher: Holloway House Pub Co
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The acclaimed novel Never Die Alone was penned in 1974 by the late African American cult writer Donald Goines shortly before his death, and was adapted for the screen by James Gibson. One of the most widely acclaimed black authors of his generation, Goines wrote his first two books while incarcerated, and followed those with an astonishing 16 novels written from the time he was released from prison in 1970 until he was shot to death in 1974. Goines sold more than 5 million books in his brief career and has, in the past decade, been re-discovered by legions of hip-hop fans. He has been called the greatest black American urban novelist since Chester Himes and the French magazine LExpress called him a flashing talent straight from the street of the lost.
Black Girl Lost
Click to order via
Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Daddy Cool: A Father Out to Revenge His Daughter's Shame
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Film in production (2006), Directed by Ernest R. Dickerson
Larry Jackson, better known as Daddy Cool, is a ruthlessly efficient black hit man, equally effective with a gun or a knife in nailing his prey. The only thing that can melt his icy heart is his love for his teenage daughter Janet. But when the smooth talking youngblood pimp Ronald lures her into his stable, Daddy Cool must go into action with a fearsome vengeance.
Black Gangster
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Black Gangster, is the first Goines' novel to be
adapted for soundtrack and film.
http://www.onthesneaktip.com/oct1998/donald2.htm
White Mans Justice, Black Man's Grief
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 087067885X
Format: Mass Market Paperback, 240pp
Pub. Date: June 2000
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Street Players
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Death List
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Goines continues the gripping, gritty story of crime in the black ghetto begun in Crime Partners. Kenyatta is back and he's angry at crooked cops and dope dealers who are destroying the lives of ghetto kids.
Swamp Man
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Kenyattas Escape
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Kenyatta had two ambitions: cleaning the ghetto of all drug traffic and gunning down all the racist white cops! But a black and white detective team, Benson and Ryan, is on his tail and has discovered the location of his army's camp. Armed with tanks, they bring a bloody doomsday to his followers. In Kenyatta's Escape, Goines continues his story of the bloody, brutal world of crime he began in Crime Partners and Death List. They're all back for a coast-to-coast chase that spells gripping adventure.
Inner City Hoodlum
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Eldorado Red (Reissue ed)
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Again, based on personal experience! When Donald Goines was discharged from the Air Force, he was addicted to heroin. To support his habit he staged the robbery of a local numbers house. And from that experience came Eldorado Red! It's the vicious story of crooks who get richer with the dollars of the ghetto poor. He's got it knocked; new cars, mellow women and plenty of money. Then he learns that treachery falls at the feet of his own son!
Kenyatta's Last Hit
Click to order via Amazon
ISBN: 0870679899
Format: Paperback, 256pp
Pub. Date: January 1998
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Kenyatta, the living black legend, concentrates his army's ruthless forces to rid the black community of rampant drug traffic. With the help of Elliot Stone, a black football star and latest recruit to the army, Kenyatta discovers the identity of the fat-cat king of the drug pushers. The crack black-and-white detective team of Benson and Ryan follows Kenyatta's trail of blood across the country...and to a final confrontation atop one of Las Vegas' most glittering hotels!
Cry Revenge
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Crime Partners
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Whoreson: The Story of a Ghetto Pimp
Click to order via Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Publishing Company
Dopefiend
Click to order via
Amazon
Publisher: Holloway House Pub Co
For twenty-three years of his life Donald Goinse lived in the dark, despair-ridden world of the junkie. It started while he was doing military service in Korea and ended with his murder at the age of thirty nine. He had worked up to a hundred dollars a day habit and out of the agonizing hell came Dopefiend! It is the shocking nightmare story of a black heroin addict. Trapped in the festering sore of a major American ghetto, a young man and his girlfriend- both handsome, talented, and full of promise- are inexorably pulled into death of the hardcore junkie!
Related Links
Never Die Alone: Goines Adaptation Marks Cultural
History By Tracy Grant
http://reviews.aalbc.com/neverdiealone.htm
Recalling the Work of Author Donald Goines
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4238745
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/goines.htm
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