|
Gritty in the City
Welcome to the world of urban lit. MEGAN SCOTT on 'Ghetto Girls,' 'Ghetto Girls, Too,' and other novels of a new genre.
"Thugs and the Women Who Love Them." "Gangsta." "True to the Game." "A Hustler's Wife."
Sounds like possible names for a 50 Cent sequel.
But these are books where drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes are the stars. These tomes -- known as urban lit, street lit, or hip-hop lit -- tell fictional stories about hustle, survival and tactics of the hood.
"We all know someone that made a bad choice in life and is paying the price for it: drug addiction, being incarcerated, being murdered even," says Karen Thomas, founder of Dafina Books, the urban books publishing arm of Kensington. "The books offer an insight, somewhat of a fascination."
Urban lit dates back to the 1970s when Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim wrote about gangsters, pimps and drug dealers. Sister Souljah breathed new life into the genre in 1999 with the "Coldest Winter Ever," a book about the daughter of a drug kingpin who joins the game after her father is arrested.
These days, mainstream publishers, such as Simon and Schuster's Atria Books imprint and St. Martin's Press, are capitalizing off the impressive sales numbers of urban novels, signing authors such as K'wan Foye and Shannon Holmes, whose first Atria release "Bad Girlz" sold 50,000 copies in three weeks.
The attraction, publishers say, is that urban lit offers grit not glitz, a sort of modern mythology. Think "Boyz N the Hood" in paperback form.
No one is rich, unless they are dealing drugs. An absentee father is as prominent as the sex and drugs. And the endings are far from happy. Someone may wind up in prison, another dead, another single and pregnant.
"Violence in books is nothing new, whether you are talking about a thriller, serial killer," says Thomas. "It's just the circumstances and the situations are a little different in these books. People are actually living this way."
A DRIVE-BY OF THE TOP FIVE URBAN LIT AUTHORS:
Anthony Whyte's "Ghetto Girls." (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy Anthony Whyte)
Name: Anthony Whyte
Where he's from: Bronx, N.Y.
Books: "Ghetto Girls," "Ghetto Girls Too."
Who's reading his stuff: "I have met an audience member as young as nine. But it's marketed to 16 through young 40s, urban men and women, also a lot of the readers are incarcerated. A parent told me one time, 'As long as my kid is reading, it's a good thing.'"
On urban lit: "I went to the Harlem Book Fair in 2003 and in 2005 I went back. It was twice the size. It was crazy. The attraction is the reality theme. People are able to identify with the characters."
On criticism of the genre: "That's what it is. Criticism. I don't think you can censor an author. I am not going to try and censor myself. I think the stories are very real and tell a story. The readers realize it's fiction, but it's based on reality. They are learning a lesson, good and bad. I don't think any of these stories glorify violence, even though some are violent."
What's next: Whyte started his own publishing company. "Soo hood," the third book in the Ghetto Girls trilogy, is coming out next month.
La Jill Hunt's "No More Drama." (AP Photo/HO)
Name: La Jill Hunt
Where she's from: Grew up in Mobile, Ala. Now lives in Virginia Beach.
Books: "Drama Queen," "No More Drama," "Shoulda Woulda Coulda," co-authored "Around the Way Girls 2" with Kashamba Williams and Thomas Long.
Drama deconstructed: "The underlying theme in all of my books is drama. You got baby momma drama, baby daddy drama, you have mother-in-law drama. You got drama in the work place."
Her drama: "I had a full scholarship to Dillard University and I wound up getting pregnant my first year."
Why she started writing: "I was stressed at work and one of my managers told me I needed to do something with my negative energy. She gave me a legal pad and a pen and told me to write the next great American novel. Thirty days later, I had penned my first novel."
What she writes: "It's drama-filled chick-lit with an urban flair. Everyone can relate."
On her latest novel "Shoulda Woulda Coulda:" "She has been with a guy for seven years. They seem to have it all, big house, life seems to be going well, the problem is we don't marry her. The major part of the problem is his mother refuses to accept her."
Name: Shannon Holmes
Where he's from: Bronx, N.Y.
Books: "B-More Careful," "Concrete Jungle," "Never Go Home Again: A Novel," "Bad Girlz: A Novel," "The Game: Short Stories About the Life."
His first ambition: "I wanted to be a drug lord." He served time in prison and has numerous felonies on his record.
His epiphany? Showing his writing to a fellow inmate: "I was talking to a stranger, this guy who was into reading in prison and I said, 'Let me know what you think about this.' The next morning he came back and said 'Man, where the rest of this at?' He said, 'Shannon, you can get a couple of dollars with this.' A light bulb went off in my head. See I never wrote for money. I wrote to kill a little time. That was it."
Common theme in all his books: I write from a female perspective. People wonder how I do that. I have dealt with a lot of females in my life, not even like sexually, but just doing business. You can trust females in the drug war before you can trust a male. A male will be the one who will steal the drugs or steal your money from you. A female will be content with the little bit of money you're giving her."
A taste of Shannon's writing, from "Bad Girlz":
"C'mere Tonya!" her mother yelled, as she passed her coming out of the bathroom. The woman's eyes focused like laser beams on her daughter's neck. Tonya pulled up her shirt collar in response, desperate in her attempt to hide the focus of her mother's attention.
Veronice Morris had forewarned her daughter time and time again about being fast with boys. "Stay away from them. Keep your legs closed. I'm not trying to be a grandmother, yet," she repeated. But like any single mother raising a teenaged daughter, she was overwhelmed.
Name: K'wan Foye
Where he's from: Harlem
Books: "Gangsta," "Road Dawg," "Street Dreams," "Hoodlum."
On reform: "When I got arrested, I did a lot of reading. I wrote short stories. I did greeting cards. I would write letters for some of the less literate ones. I said, "Hey, I am good at this. Maybe when I come home I'll try to write a book.' "
Giving his guts: "Some people write from their mind, I write from my soul. I give you exactly what's in my heart when I spill out on the pages. Regardless of what people think, what they do, or what they say, I just give you what's inside of me.
On his magic touch: "I can make ugly look beautiful. I can take the saddest thing and word it in a way while not only are you empathetic with what the characters are going through, you feel yourself drawn."
His audience: "In the beginning, it was just the kids reading the books. Later on down the line, older people were reading my books. My stories were getting more mature. As my skills mature, so does my audience."
What's next: "I have books written to 2010. I am a monster."
A taste of K'wan's writing, from "Hoodlum":
The amount of money that Heath owed wasn't really worth making a stink over, but there was a method to Tommy's madness. Heath was one of the few people operating an illegal business in Harlem that didn't grease Tommy's or Poppa's palm. Heath was fortunate enough to be running one of the few number holes that was still pulling in respectable bread. Tommy wanted in, but Heath shut him down. He was an old head and was connected to the guineas. Strong-arming him might've caused a stink in relations between the Clarks and the Ciassorros. But if Heath was wrong Tommy could have him killed and no one could really raise a stink about it.
Name: Teri Woods
Where she's from: Philadelphia.
Books: "True to the Game," "Deadly Reigns," "Dutch II: Angel's Revenge," "Dutch the First of a Trilogy." Teri is a self-published author.
How she got started: "I never thought I would be an author. I just sat down to write a story about how everybody was getting money, how everyone was living and rolling. And that's how I got True to the Game."
The challenge of getting published: "I was done in 1992, in between 93 and 95, I tried to get published. Everybody turned me down. It sat in the closet for a couple of years until around 98. I took it out of the closet. My girlfriend read it. She said, 'Omigod Teri this is the best book I have read.'"
What she's doing now: She has her own publishing company, Teri Woods Publishing in New York and she and her fiance have a film company in Los Angeles.
On writing: "Writing is easy for me. What's challenging is the publishing aspect and getting the project off the ground.
A taste of Teri's writing, from "True to the Game: A Teri Woods Fable":
A Night Out
Harlem, New York. It was the summer of 1988, and it was hot. Too hot. Harlem had to be the hottest place on the planet in the summertime. Exiting the West Riverside Drive on 125th Street, Gena was amazed to see so many people standing outside a night club. "Damn, look at that limousine, girl. We need to be with them!" Laughing out loud, now, she was suddenly anxious to get uptown.
"We damn sure do," said Sahirah, looking smug. It was amazing, there was nothing like it. 125th was a mini Greek playland in the middle of Harlem. Gena had no understanding. It wasn't like Philly. It was larger, and the niggas looked like Eric B. and Rakim, with humongous gold chains and diamond medallions the size of bread plates.
If it was meant to represent wealth, that shit did its job. And Gena liked it.
Megan Scott is an asap reporter in New York. |
