EDDIE B. ALLEN JR.

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ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE

 Eddie B. Allen Author of LOW ROAD: THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF DONALD GOINES

LOW ROAD can be ordered at

BOOK REVIEW

 Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines

By Eddie B. Allen, Jr.

St. Martin’s Press, October 2004, @$23.95, ISBN 0-312-29124-8

"I remember that I was much too young when I first started reading his books, probably in the second or third grade. I recognized people in my neighborhood who were like the characters in his books." — Robyn Ussery, Donald Goines enthusiast

Why do rappers still quote lyrics from Donald Goines novels, and why, 30 years after his death, is Holloway House Publishing still reprinting his novels? Even before the recent release of Never Die Alone, a movie based on a Goines novel of the same name starring rap artist DMX, Goines remained popular among urban youth. Goines’ novels can be compared in some ways to the cult following on the hip-hop scene of the movie Scarface. Allen’s biography of Donald Goines is the first book to examine the far-reaching influences of Goines’ writing. Allen’s insights, both as a Detroiter, who shares Goines’ hometown, and as a journalist will, I’m sure, interest all of Goines’ fans.

"Wham!" the first word in chapter one of Eddie Allen, Jr’s Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines, is also an appropriate description of the unflinching honesty of Allen’s style which is similar in that way to Goines’. A fresh organization of prose and metaphors in Low Road provide a sense of the city that boasts icons such as Malcolm, Motown, and motor cars. Juxtaposed against the cultural/historical backdrop of Detroit and Goines’ life, the reader of Low Road will find mesmerizing splashes of historical experiences which produced the prolific Goines.

Allen’s biography of Goines follows the destiny of one black man in America but what the reader will find chilling is that Goines’ fate could be that of our son, brother, cousin or uncle. Low Road forces us to examine the incomprehensible situation that is Goines’ life and to question the destruction of young black men’s lives in America from Goines himself to his grandchild, Donald Goines III, killed as a child in 1992. Goines’ novels remain a vivid picture of a lifestyle involving violence, sex and drugs which has become more glamorous and more appealing with time to urban media mongrels who avoid accountability. Allen’s indirectly asks the 70’s question, "What’s Goin On? And for me Allen calls a community to accountability and causes us to ask how many times are we going to allow Goines story to be repeated?

Notwithstanding, for those other readers who are looking for the definitive story of Donald Goines’ life and a taste of the mysterious, this is the book. In addition, readers who want to experience black Detroit will be delighted to find many historical markers along the way. Low Road: The Life and Legacy of Donald Goines is a wonderful addition to bookshelves about black popular culture and black icons.

_Reviewed by Dr. Imelda Hunt for BLACK ISSUES BOOK REVIEW

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