Scene

by Clarence L. Cooper Jr. and Jr. Cooper, Clarence L.

Book Overview

The Scene is an urban half-world of drug pushers and users, of pimps and prostitutes and narcotics detectives, laid bare in this explosive novel. From The Panic, the time of no dope, to The Man, who controls its ebb and flow on the streets, The Scene is a gripping work of heightened, hellish realism--a harrowing masterpiece of drug literature.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393314634
• ISBN13: 9780393314632
• Release Date: July 1996
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

gritty, powerful, unrelenting and unforgettable

The late, great African-American genius Clarence Cooper, Jr., is (quite) possibly better than Hemingway. That's what I said--and I'm a huge Hemingway fan. Unfortunately, in his lifetime, not only was Cooper's work not given the respect it deserved, but (in some circles) it was even treated as hack work by an unimportant writer. It all ended in a room in a flophouse in NY. Penniless and alone. An original voice like this. Silenced. They did it to Van Gogh. They did it to Poe. Beaten down by their inferiors.

Highly Underrated Crime Masterpiece

Overshadowed by authors like Burroughs and Algren, this novel fell thourgh the cracks. Although it is dated, the novel remains highly entertaining and extremely thought provoking. The sharp dialogue and well-conceived plot turns will definitely hook you.

Black pulp fiction !

In Clarence Coopers The Scene cronicles the lives of several junkies, pushers, cops, thieves that live and die in an unnamed city over the course of several months. The story is told in a pulp fictionesce type of manner where all of these characters interconnect with one another There is even a character who dies in the begining that we later find out why. But more than just being a gimmicky story about crimminals and cops it's more than that it's about hope and hopelessness, greed, corruption, ruthlessness, racism, classism and sexism redemtion and revenge. And it's a murder mystery of sorts. It sounds like a lot but Cooper keeps all of this afloat with his stark realistic depiction of street life. His description of a heroin addicts withdrawl is unflinching, almost too real. I recomend this book highly to those who like black pulpwriters such as Donald Goines, chester himes but those who like a good hard boiled tale about a world most us rarely see and most ofetn times want to believe doesn't exist.

An Interesting Look at Cooper's Street Life

Cooper does an excellent job with the story, using the characters to tell the story instead of narrating it. He does a good job with the relationships between each character and each are developed. You feel for them when they are in pain and felt their excitement when they find a score.