Set in Los Angeles, the novel was about heroin, money and murder. Inner City Hoodlum, which Goines had finished before his death, was published posthumously in 1975. Allen remarks that the series was a departure from some of Goines's other works, with the character of Kenyatta symbolizing a sense of liberation for Goines. The book dealt with an anti-hero character named after Jomo Kenyatta that ran an organization similar to the Black Panthers to clear the ghetto of crime. Holloway House's chief executive Bentley Morriss requested that Goines publish the book under a pseudonym in order to avoid having the sales of Goines's work suffer due to too many books releasing at once. In 1974 Goines published Crime Partners, the first book in the Kenyatta series under the name Al C. His sister Joan Goines Coney later said that Goines wrote at such an accelerated pace in order to avoid committing more crimes, and based many of the characters in his books on people he knew in real life. Goines continued to write novels at an accelerated pace in order to support his drug addictions, with some books taking only a month to complete. Goines initially attempted to write Westerns, but he decided to write urban fiction after reading Robert 'Iceberg Slim' Beck's autobiography Pimp: The Story of My Life. He began writing while serving a sentence in Michigan's Jackson Penitentiary. He was sentenced to prison several times, both state and federal. He lived in several cities, including Kansas City, Missouri and Junction City, Kansas, but mostly in his native Detroit. In order to support his addiction, Goines committed crimes including pimping, larceny, robbery, illegal liquor manufacturing and theft.

Adult life ĭuring his stint in the Armed Forces, Goines developed an addiction to heroin that continued after his honorable discharge in the mid-1950s.

Īt age 15, Goines lied about his age to join the Air Force and fought in the Korean War. Donald was the middle child of three, and the only son.

Hs mother Myrtle Goines told Goines that her family was descended from Jefferson Davis and a woman who was enslaved. His parents were a middle-class Black Catholic couple that ran a laundry business. Goines was born in Detroit, Michigan on December 15, 1936. His novels were deeply influenced by the work of Iceberg Slim. Clark Decem– October 21, 1974) was an African-American writer of urban fiction. Kenyatta series ( Crime Partners, Death List, Kenyatta's Escape, Kenyatta's Last Hit)ĭonald Goines (pseudonym: Al C.

Relentless by julian edelman