Sunday, March 13, 2011

Marshall "Eddie" Conway autobiography etc

I'm looking forward to reading this book, Marshall "Eddie" Conway's Marshall Law: The Life and Times of a Baltimore Black Panther (AK Press, 2011).  


Relatedly, there's Mumia Abu-Jamal's We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party (South End Press, 2004), reprinted 2008.


My favorite autobiography by a (former) Black Panther is James Carr's BAD: The Autobiography of James Carr (Herman Graf Associates, 1975), reprinted by AK Press 2002.  Not to be confused with the singer by the same name, although he's good too.  This book is rambunctious and highly poignant, not only reflecting and exposing the conflicted historical logic of the Black Panther Party and its members, but expressing the basic fact and crux of being, the inexorable sine qua non of rage, resistance, and uncertain renewal.


I also recommend Sanyika Shakur/Monster Kody Scott's classic Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1993), reprinted by Grove Press 2004.

Recently, his first novel T.H.U.G. L.I.F.E. (Grove Press, 2009) was published.


And Stanley Tookie Williams' Blue Rage, Black Redemption: A Memoir (Touchstone, 2007), as well as his Redemption: From Original Gangster to Nobel Prize Nominee (Milo Books, 2004) and Life in Prison (Chronicle Books, 2001).