The Scene

by Clarence L. Cooper Jr.

“Not even Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm burns with the ferocious intensity you’ll find here. [Cooper] writes with a personal authority that can only be called shattering and the searing exactness of one who has lived through the horror.” ― New York Herald Tribune The Scene is an urban half-world of drug pushers and users, of pimps and prostitutes and narcotics detectives, laid bare in this explosive novel. From The Panic, the time of no dope, to The Man, who controls its ebb and flow on the streets, The Scene is a gripping work of heightened, hellish realism―a harrowing masterpiece of drug literature.

Genres: Crime, Fiction

292 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

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

[Cody · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes the bards just sang it better than you could ever hope to even graze.

Ladies and gentleman…THE FROGS—

“I've done drugs that would blow your mind
Tonight real fine
Tonight blow your mind
Tonight out of my mind
Tonight
Tonight goin' out of my mind
Tonight out of my mind
Tonight blow you blind
Tonight

I've got a suitcase full of drugs I can turn you on
Would you like to come along?
(I'd like to come along)
I've got got drugs (where ya goin' man?)
I've got drugs (can I come wherever it is man?)
I've got drugs (I'll do your dope)
I've got blues (I'll be a dope man)

Out of the mist, there's a pimp (out of the misty moon)
Out of the mist, there's a hooker (coppin' tit)
Out of the mist, there's a priest
(From a man with a joint in his hand)
Out of the mist (I kissed you beautiful)

Out of the mist
How could I miss you with your drugs?
Out of the mist
How could I miss you with your druggy ways? (fuck off)
Out of the mist (out of the misty world i spun my dreams)
Out of the mist
Out of the mist (I pissed on Gordon Lightfoot twice)
I kissed your lovely drug-filled lips

You sleazy prostitute
Where's your pimp friend?
(Gimmie your fucking can of 'ludes turn 'em over whore)
Where's your pimp friend and your priest?
As he stood there and lectured to me
On how i should live about (on his yeast infection)
(Fucking priest with a yeast infection)
A drug problem that never existed

Out of the mist
I kissed your drug-filled lips”

—D. and J. Flemion

I’ve no clue how to link or embed fuckall on this fallen Constantinople of a site, but DO listen with the kids if you’re not Frogs familiar. No band like them. RIP Dennis X

HERE: https://youtu.be/YpFZIkDnPg8?si=4ZsuO...
________________________________

My Bit:

Cooper was and remains unappreciated thanks to his filing under ‘crime’ or somesuch nonsense. Cooper lived the life he chronicled, much of it in one of our finer penal dehumanizers or another, and virtually all of it strung out on some form of opium derivative. So, unless Elmore Leonard actually robbed banks or whatever happens in his books—unless he, Elmore Leonard, shot Robert DeNiro while going under the assumed name Ordell Robbie in a van and said to Bob, “You used to be beautiful, man”—then the two share passing, surface similarities at best. Crime, namely. So I guess I’ll check the Crime section of my cozy little local book supermarché next time I’m looking for Dostoevsky? Seems fair. Genre is a ghetto.

This immortal and beloved Frogs tune is so close to a 1:1 analogue of Cooper’s The Scene that it foregoes my doomed recapitulation or sorry fumblings in the backseat of lit criticism’s luxury sedan. If you think I’m joking about the above joint, please read this structurally inventive stash of uncut junk yourself. It’s, like, real deal shit, silk.

[J. · Rating 3 out of 5]

He nuzzled his head between her breasts, his hair cold and dead. "Baby, I had a hard day. You just believe it, I had a hard day. I'm gonna quit it, I'm gonna give this bag up, you just watch and see, baby."
A long time ago, she had been a very fast girl, quick to catch on, popular in the girls' club at school, sought after, kissed and petted and loved. Right now it seemed almost silly that she should be hooked, with scars on her arms, with nothing but a housedress on because she felt too lazy and sluggish to dress in the mornings, with an ugly little black man who held the bag containing all the riches and loves and romances she had ever dreamed of, held them in condensed version, powdered form...

Tough 1960 urban crime and addiction novel, set almost entirely within an African American setting. Comes on like blaxploitation at first, but get beyond that-- there was no such thing as blaxploitation in 1960, that was a much later complication. A lot of the slang and drug patter here would have read like Martian-language back in 1960 to anyone outside of the inner city drug milieu. The narrative itself reads and feels authentic, a painfully extracted biopsy along the axis of race and drug abuse, in the America that fancied itself the grand accomplishment of the postwar era world.

Author Cooper spoke from experience, and wrote without sparing anyone's sensibilities; he was a user and a convicted narcotics offender himself. The Scene was written while incarcerated and kicking heroin in prison. He died destitute and alone in 1978.

[Diego González · Rating 4 out of 5]

"La escena" es el lugar donde los yonkis van a buscar su ración de merca para chutarse la vena y quedarse tirados en un rincón durante horas. Putas, chulos, camellos, traficantes, yonkis y toda clase de gentuza en general se mueve por las calles de La Escena bajo la mirada atenta de una policía absolutamente desbordada por la marea de mierda que desata la heroína en la ciudad.

El estilo absolutamente descarnado y brutal, sin concesiones ni al lirismo ni a la compasión, proviene sin duda del trasfondo del autor: yonki perdido, habitual de la cárcel (tres de sus siete libros fueron publicados mientras Cooper estaba empadronado en la trena) y personaje difícil de tratar.

Sajalin tiene tres o cuatro títulos de novela negra absolutamente brutales, aparte de los de Edward Bunker, otro escritor carcelario magnífico. Este es uno de ellos. Se lee casi del tirón, con un estilo casi televisivo de puro directo. Muy recomendable.

[Sergio Pascual · Rating 3 out of 5]

"La Escena" es un territorio de una ciudad dominado por "El Hombre" quien tiene el monopolio de la heroína que reclama una plaga de yonquis que viven en la zona. Dos policías de color, el veterano y nada complaciente Davis y el recién incorporado Patterson tratan de remover hilos para llegar a coger al Hombre. Con una trama y ritmo de película, el libro se lee con facilidad y rapidez. Cooper destripa bien los bajos fondos y el submundo de la droga y sus efectos devastadores, puesto que él fue uno de los suyos.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just read this book. Liked it a lot. Here's my blog post about it: http://douglevin.blogspot.com/2011/09...

[Zoe Michaels · Rating 5 out of 5]

Too dope. Thoroughly enjoyed readig this book!

[Adrián Ciutat · Rating 4 out of 5]

La mejor trama y reflexión construida en torno a la heroína que he leído, visto u oído jamás.

[Beer Bolwijn · Rating 1 out of 5]

Perhaps it introduced some cool goings-on when it was published, but now it reads like a terrible exploitation movie. A wide array of paper thin characters, explaining everything (my intelligence was insulted many times), tedious inconsequential chapters... ugh. My head feels nauseous from plowing through to the end. Everything feels cheap, everything gets repeated over and over and over until you wish the author had someone proof-read this.

Don't let the first chapter (which was very good at vividly painting a street scene) pull you in. It's not worth the ride.

High unrecommended. Try Howard Street instead.

[Silvia Rojas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro que te atrapa nada más empezar, con sus diálogos y jerga propias del submundo de la droga de los años 60 en Estados Unidos.

Me ha flipado la crudeza con la que se cuentan ciertos momentos y lo fácil que te metes en la historia. 👌🏻🙌🏻

[Lidia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ciertos momentos me han parecido un The Wire deslocalizado.

[Pamela · Rating 2 out of 5]

What I could understand of it was good...it kept flipping scenes too much..., but Cooper did do a good job of depicting street life.

[Todd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the perfect book if you enjoy exploitation movies of the 60's.