Donald Goines (1937–1974)

Six stars for the audiobook narrator, Bahni Turpin, who is beyond fantastic. The book itself is engrossing from beginning to end. The things Goines writes about seem real, and they have very real consequences for the characters involved. This is a story of a neglected child who takes her life into her own hands, making both good and bad decisions--whatever she feels is necessary to survive. She finds love in the unlikeliest place, and this leads to tragic--or perhaps show more inevitable--consequences. This book is explicit in its horror, but never in a sensationalist way. There is no cruel pleasure in seeing what happens to the girl along her chosen path. Overall, this isn't as visceral as Dope Fiend, so if you are new to Goines, read that first. The man could write, and he knew what he was writing about. He deserves your attention. show less

Goines wrote this in prison, and it is an amazing immersion in a world of addicts who will do anything for their next fix--and I do mean anything, since Porky, the dealer, is a cruel and imaginative sort. The story follows Teddy, who is pretty worthless from the start, and will steal from his own family if needed, and Terry, his beautiful girlfriend whom he has grubbed off of and now has addicted to heroin. Will either survive? Because this is told in the third person, the reader has no show more assurance that the narrator will survive. I highly recommend this if you have a tolerance for some of the most disgusting, but well-written, fiction you have ever experienced. This goes straight for the gut and succeeds almost totally, with barely a false note.

Excellent narration by Kevin Kenerly makes the story come alive. show less

Whoreson is Goines at his best, giving us what we love the most with tight plotlines and believable dialogue.

Whoreson Jones is a mutt his whorish mama slipped and got caught with. And she's pretty pissed he came out a boy and light like the white men she can't stand spreading her legs for. So he grows up in a ghettoized version of a whore house (that ain't a house but apartments rented by his mother's co-workers) learning the pimping and whoring game from her. Then as a tween he learns how show more to hustle cards and hood games. Then his mother dies and he embarks on a mission to be the baddest player that ever walked the planet, until not heeding his mother's tutelage makes him slip, fall, and he can't get his game back up.

And in true Goines fashion, no one gets out alive. show less

Black Girl Lost is probably the most silently yet brutally honest portrayal of young girls slipping through the cracks Goines has ever wrote about. We start following Sandra, whose a young black girl trying to make a life for herself without much help from her drunk mother. She's a hustler, and gets a shop sweeping up at a little grocery shop owned by this Jew guy that's sweet on the idea of her pulling herself up by the bootstraps. But her mother is just a mess, and drags Sandra into some show more terrible situations that propels her into getting more into the street life to survive. She becomes a old hand at stealing clothes and shoes by the time she's old enough to date.

Along the way in school she meets a kindred spirit whose also in the school of hard knocks surviving as a heroin dealer. He's more independent than her, living on his own, taking care of himself. At first they are just friends. Then they become lovers. But he's too comfortable, slips, and gets caught up. Now Sandra's back on her own struggling, and every possible bad thing you could think could happen to her does. However, when her dude finds out all hell breaks loose and in true Goines fashion, no one gets out alive.

I'd follow this one up right after Swamp Man. show less