Weed

by Clarence L. Cooper Jr.

Novel about "the murky underside of Negro life. trapped by their culture, trapped by their own needs. Boo, pot, gangster, weed. marijuana!"

Genres: Fiction, Crime

158 pages, Unknown Binding

First published October 1, 1961

About the author

Clarence Cooper Jr. wrote seven crime novels, which describe life in Black America, in the underworld of drugs and violence and in jail (The Farm). Cooper worked as an editor for The Chicago Messenger around 1955. He was said to have started taking heroin at this time. His first book, The Scene was a success with the critics. It had been published by serious Random House, but his other three books were published by Regency, a pure paperback publisher, while Cooper was in prison in Detroit: Weed (1961). The Dark Messenger (1962) and Yet Princess Follow together with Not We Many, as Black: Two Short Novels (1962). Harlan Ellison was his editor. His last book, The Farm, plays at the Lexington prison for drug addicts, once called U.S. Narcotics Farm. Cooper' s addiction and a growing alienation from those around him, perhaps driven by the hostile response to his fiction all contributed to his early destitute death.

He died penniless, strung out and alone in the 23rd street YMCA New York City in 1978.

Reviews

[T E · Rating 5 out of 5]

dope as hell