Review: Tales from the Dark Side
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 01 10, 2012
EXTREME WARNING: Unless your computer has updated Norton Anti-virus protection or comparable protection against covert & malicious software (which infects your computer & then downloads all your files at night by spies) DO NOT ACCESS ANY OF MY REVIEWS!!! [This is no hype or joke.]I can now add one more writer to my list of four and five-star Black urban and/or erotic novelists who have excellent literary skills and who craft interesting, very readable stories.  On this list I include Quentin Carter, Barry C. Davis, Lexy Harper, James Henderson, Monique D Mensah...and now, an author who calls himself, C-note.To simply call C-note talented does no justice to his extraordinary abilities.  Yes, his novels [FROM A THUG 2 A MAN, Parts 1 & 2] are urban novels--with the standard fare of guns, sex, and ho's.  But what is uniquely different is the way he peers inside his principle character's minds--to understand their motivations.  He has an outstanding ear for Black speech and colloquialisms--particularly those unique to Boston and the East Coast.  As such, the Black males do sound authentically gangster and ghetto [and who, for the most part, remain economically and emotionally tethered there...even if the Black females...as girlfriends, baby mammas, and/or one-night-stands (all authentically voiced as well)...have sometimes physically and materially moved away...all while still keeping their same attitudes] with whatever else can be said.And what else can be said is this: both they and these tales are really about consequences--from the dark side of Black life...the underside...with its pettiness & stupidity; its crime & filth, and a culturally new, sexual freakishness--all based upon the characters beliefs, experiences, and decisions...(something which James Baldwin said you can never argue with.)  Why??? Because they, in truth, do know what they know; and have, in fact, done what they do.  And, more often than not, they make their decisions (stupid and inflexible as they sometimes are) based upon it.  So, for varied and differing reasons--(some self-chosen, others not)--they (both males and females) have become hustlers, gang-bangers, dope dealers, thieves, junkies, crack-heads, freaks, whores, killers, and prison inmates.  Most of whom made these life-changing decisions as adolescents.  And until Experience (meaning jails, prisons, and multiple ass-kickings) or simply Old Age teaches them otherwise, they are very unlikely to change.  The death and destruction of their minds and spirits is almost a foregone conclusion---something which white think-tanks, racist governmental agencies, racially targeted legal & judicial policies, police-state law enforcers, and private prisons, contractors, and corporations planned politically and surreptitiously as public policy and are hell-bent to see in effect.Ain't no love in the heart of these cities (nor in any part of these United States.) Not for Black people...and especially not for Black males.  It is a systemic war of targeted genocide.  Crime, violence, gangs, drugs, jails, prisons, alcoholism, unwanted pregnancies, unprotected sex, child-abuse & child neglect, STDs, and AIDS...all wreck havoc on central cities and the people living there.  Love, jobs, and in-tact families are rarely found.  For C-note, as a writer, this is his meat and potatoes.  He knows about what he writes about.  He tells it exactly like it is...and we know its all true.  We can see and hear it for ourselves...exactly as he describes it.What C-note has seen (and learned from), he knows very well...and writes about it even better...something with which I can't argue.  But I can say this: writing is also a form of social responsibility.  Innately, authors are tellers of stories who help mold social, sexual, and cultural opinions.  Some authors sell their souls (to grinning & greedy devils) for money---and then, still wind-up broke and cheated...like the never-been-out-of-print Black urban novelist, Iceberg Slim---who died broke and in poverty---while his publisher made (and still makes) millions from his writings...to this very day.Writing is not a form of Art for Arts Sake.  Romance novels have an agenda; erotic novels have an agenda, and urban novels also have an agenda--either hidden or open...whether it's selling love and romance as B.S.; or secretly promoting masturbation and/or open sexual freakishness; or else glorifying or self-justifying murder...for money, for ego, for materialism, for dope, or some other stupidity or vice.  Each has an agenda...mostly for royalty checks...but quite often in the service of white supremacy, propaganda, and mind control.  But whatever it's for, we must understand it.  Because as Maya Angelou so eloquently said, "When people tell you (or show you) who they are, believe them."  Who is C-note?? Read him for yourself.  Decide for yourself.  But you will see a master at his craft.