White fascination at catching a glimpse of the exoticism of the black underworld shot Iceberg Slim’s Pimp to stardom in 1967. Voyeurism–the love of looking–plays a significant role in the pimp figure transforming from an enemy to the black liberation movement to an icon of cultural fashion (Nishikawa 136). Yet Donald Goines animates the depravity that black sleaze gestures to in his novel Never Die Alone. In fact, Goines establishes a new genre called ghetto realism that rejects the whie voyeurism that black sleaze depends on; he evokes an insider’s sensation of despair–fueled by poverty and racism–instead of appealing to an outsider’s view of the black underworld.
Goines introduces Paul Pawlowski at the beginning of the plot. Down of his luck, Paul is a Jewish writer in New York City who is struggling to make ends meet. Yet Paul vehemently turns down a publisher’s offer to write a by-line that espouses de facto racism for its primarily Southern white audience; he explains that the novel he submitted as a sample featured a black man as a serial rapist because it made it more realistic, not to stoke long-held racist fears (Goines 26). In this way Goines reveals the subconscious perception of black men that exists in Paul’s mind. He draws from the fear of black men raping white women and, consequently, cuckolding the white men who own them. Goines criticizes white liberals who love to gaze at the black underworld but continue to reinforce the negative stereotypes and perceptions that have caused the inhabitants of the ghetto to invent their own moral code.
After King David’s diary comes into Paul’s possession, he becomes fascinated by the black gangster’s larger-than-life stories of conning innocent people out of their money to rise out of his own social station. The cunning that King David employs keeps Paul reading late into the hours of the early morning. Not only that, but Paul feels a sense of pride in recognizing that King David was making an amateur effort to write a novel. The black underworld is exotic to Paul; he is tempted to rework King David’s stories and sell it off as his own because he knows that the white-dominated publishing market will devour them. Yet Paul’s fascination turns to disgust as he reads about how King David raped and murdered a woman who had insulted his masculinity, lacing cocaine with battery acid for revenge. The separate system of justice that King David swears by now holds no appeal to Paul; in fact, Paul donates all of King David’s money to a drug center. In looking at the black underworld, Paul discovers that an insider’s sensation of despair provides a stark contrast to an outsider’s view of the seemingly-exotic cityscape.
I like how you pointed out that Paul’s initial interest in King David’s story turns to disgust after finding out what King David has done. I wonder if this is how all uninformed journies from privileged outsiders end up: after an introductory fascination with the subject, they realize that actually being inside of this dark world is grueling and grim. It makes me almost feel guilty reading these novels. I can pick them up, grimace as I read the difficult parts, and then put it back down, returning to my privileged life. People Goines would have known cannot as readily escape this life.