This one gets 2 stars because I understand why people like it - fast-paced action and quick reading (I think it's my fastest 200 pages to date), a mixture of unscrupulous and scrupulous characters, raunchy sex scenes, a moral at the end of the story without a bunch of preaching throughout, and a voice that has historically been marginalized (black folks from the ghetto engaged in illegal trades). That being said, I had a really hard time with the writing -- it is obvious that Goines was just churning them out. The name of the main character, Daddy Cool, pops up a bazillion times on each page, for instance. Also, Janet and Jimmy are half-siblings, but sometimes referred to as step-siblings. Little inconsistencies, repetitive writing, and too-convenient coincidences turned me off. Also, a child rape scene that, despite the fact that the perpetrators get their come-uppances, was really, really poorly handled and made me a little nauseous (It was unclear -- I think the reader was supposed to be turned on? AHHHHHHHH!). This scene alone made me decide I'm over Goines for my own reading purposes.
Ghetto lit is what it is so it gets three stars, though I might have given it two. Don't come here for the writing, but for what you might call grit and a fast pace (even faster to read), hilarious overstatement, pimps and numbers rackets as it's of an era and a place and a publishing way of life. The sexualisation of women and the rape of a 13 year old made this a little hard for me, and honestly, I really hate pimps, so it's probably the last Holloway House title I'll be reading until I find the one about revolution and Malcolm X. But still, I love this opening'Larry Jackson, better known as "Daddy Cool," stepped on the litter-filled street in the town of Flint, Michigan. His prey, a slim, brown-complexioned man, walked briskly ahead. He was unaware that he was being followed by one of the deadliest killers the earth had ever spawned.'
Do You like book Daddy Cool (2000)?
Daddy Cool features the most jarring contrast between style and subject matter of any book that I can remember reading. While the plot is fairly brutal--featuring, among other things, the gang rape of a child and an assassin who works only with knives--the novel is written in the most wooden grammar-book prose imaginable. Even the profanity-laced dialogue is written as though Donald Goines imagined that some schoolmarm somewhere would be assigning him a grade. I found the narrative sometimes to be powerful when I was able to tune out the prose style, but tuning out the prose style was difficult.
—David
