Daddy Cool: A Father Out to Revenge His Daughter's Shame

by Donald Goines

Mack Daddy for the Ages

Back in 1974, young men used to read books like Daddy Cool and The School on 103rd Street. These cult books were the literary equivalent of blaxploitation stories of black action heroes (usually hardened street warriors like pimps, dealers, or hit men) who were trying to get one over on the Man (represented by racist cops, government stooges, or corrupt politicians). A whole generation of inner-city youths cut teeth on these pulp fiction thrillers, yet the authors and books remain unknown outside the ghetto.

With the reissue of these classics by Old School Books (W. W. Norton), Original Gangster literature moves from the ghetto slum to the buppie enclave. In "serious" literary circles, ghetto stars such as Iceberg Slim and Chester Himes are now referred to as "urban realists." Consider yourself warned.

This genre exists in an amoral universe, where "good guys" are sometimes hardened criminals, and by the last page the heroes usually meet a violent end. One of the most popular cult writers was Donald Goines, a heroin addict and ex-con whose 16 books chronicled the brutal and desperate lives of addicts, hustlers, and pimps. Goines's books have remained in print, but Daddy Cool is his first novel to be given the trade paperback treatment.

Although hugely popular, Goines was far from a master prose stylist. Many of his books have hollow characters and laughable plots. His finest book, by far, was this novel about Larry Jackson, better known as Daddy Cool.

Although he's the best hired killer money can buy, even Daddy Cool isn't safe from domestic trouble. He's got two lazy stepsons who've turned stickup men, a wife he's outgrown and barely tolerates, and a beloved daughter who's left home to live with her boyfriend, a young pimp on the make. It's taken a toll on Daddy Cool and thrown off his game. A routine assignment, for example, results in the deaths of his mark and an unexpected witness. Things get even worse when he discovers his daughter has started working the streets for her boyfriend.

In Daddy Cool, Goines's plot makes up for his bare-bones writing style. He manages to do the take a standard blaxploitation stereotype and make him into a believable character. Here's the scene where Daddy Cool spots his daughter plying her

"Hey, kitten," he said gently, "I didn't come down here to find you just to see you lookin' blue. I remembered that today was your birthday and hoped maybe we could have dinner or something together."

"Oh, Daddy," she cried; then the floodgates opened and all the pent-up emotions she had been holding back came spilling out. Daddy Cool leaned over and took his daughter in his arms. She cried as though her heart was broken.

As he held her tenderly, he had to fight down a lump that came into his throat. He stroked the back of her head and spoke gently to her. "Now, girl, it ain't nothin' that bad, is there? I know I raised a girl who could just about handle everything that came up."

Goines manages to walk the line between heartfelt sentiment and melodrama. Best of all, he fully explores the complex interrelationships of his characters. And don't worry, there's still plenty of tough gangsta stylin' and explosive violence to make hard-core gangsta rappers look like stone-cold punks.
And in a broader sense, Daddy Cool and the other Old School Books titles are important historical and cultural markers for African Americans. Norton deserves acknowledgement for rescuing these otherwise abandoned treasures.

Originally published over a 21-year period (1957-1978), these books and authors fell just outside the limelight created by the Black Arts Movement—that 1960s literary/political movement that advanced social engagement as its banner toward liberation. Eschewing the accommodationist literature of civil rights, the Black Arts Movement aspired only to black power. Among its early progenitors were writers Tom Dent, Ishmael Reed, Larry Neal, and Rosa Guy and poets Dudley Randall and Amiri Baraka, the movement's acknowledged founder. The literary movement coalesced in 1965, holding tightly together until 1975-1976.

But Old School Books authors found themselves in a double bind. As a genre, they were dependent on acceptance by the established politic for finance and publication. The New Negro Movement and glow of the Harlem Renaissance had long passed, and the perceived value of African-American fiction was minimal.

The Black Arts Movement, ignited by performance poetry spoken in popular rhetoric and vernacular, sparked mass appeal. While poetry flourished (the Last Poets, Haki Madhubuti, Sonia Sanchez, Nikki Giovanni, Gwendolyn Brooks), black fiction took a back seat. Simultaneously, as the Black Arts Movement spoke of community and liberation, the themes addressed by Old School authors made them politically incorrect par...

Genres: Fiction, Crime, Pulp, Noir, African American, Urban, Cult Classics

200 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2002

About the author

Donald Goines was born in Detroit to a relatively comfortable family - his parents owned a local dry cleaner, and he did not have problems with the law or drugs. Goines attended Catholic elementary school and was expected to go into his family's laundry business. Instead Goines enlisted in the US Air Force, and to get in he had to lie about his age. From 1952 to 1955 he served in the armed forces. During this period he got hooked on heroin. When he returned to Detroit from Japan, he was a heroin addict.

The next 15 years from 1955 Goines spent pimping, robbing, stealing, bootlegging, and running numbers, or doing time. His seven prison sentences totaled 6.5 years. While in jail in the 1960s he first attempted to write Westerns without much success - he loved cowboy movies. A few years later, serving a different sentence at a different prison, he was introduced to the work of Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck). This time Goines wrote his semi-autobiographical novel Whoreson, which appeared in 1972. It was a story about the son of a prostitute who becomes a Detroit ghetto pimp. Also Beck's first book, Pimp: The Story of My Life (1967), was autobiographical. Goines was released in 1970, after which he wrote 16 novels with Holloway House, Iceberg Slim's publisher. Hoping to get rid of surroundings - he was back on smack - he moved with his family to the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts.

All of Goines's books were paperback originals. They sold well but did not receive much critical attention. After two years, he decided to return to Detroit. Goines's death was as harsh as his novels - he and his wife were shot to death on the night of October 21, 1974. According to some sources Goines's death had something to do with a failed drugs deal. The identity of the killers remained unknown, but there were reports of "two white men". Posthumously appeared Inner City Hoodlum (1975), which Goines had finished before his death. The story, set in Los Angeles, was about smack, money, and murder.

The first film version of Goines's books, Crime Partners (2001), was directed by J. Jesses Smith. Never Die Alone (1974), about the life of a drug dealer, was filmed by Ernest R. Dickerson, starring DMX. The violent gangsta movie was labelled as "junk masquerading as art."

During his career as a writer, Goines worked to a strict timetable, writing in the morning, devoting the rest of the day to heroin. His pace was furious, sometimes he produced a book in a month. The stories were usually set in the black inner city, in Los Angeles, New York or Detroit, which then was becoming known as 'motor city'. In Black Gangster (1972) the title character builds a "liberation" movement to cover his planned criminal activities. After this work Goines started to view the social and political turmoil of the ghetto as a battlefield between races.

Under the pseudonym Al C. Clark, Goines created a serial hero, Kenyatta, who was named after the 'father of Kenya', Jomo Kenyatta. The four-book series, beginning with Crime Partners (1974), was published by Holloway House. Kenyatta is the leader of a militant organization which aims at cleaning American ghettos of drugs and prostitution. All white policemen, who patrol the black neighborhoods, also are his enemies. Cry Revenge! (1974) tells of Curtis Carson, who is tall, black, and used to giving orders. He becomes the nightmare of the Chicanos, who have crushed his brother. Death List (1974) brings together Kenyatta, the powerful ganglord, Edward Benson, an intelligent black detective, and Ryan, his chisel-faced white partner, in a war against a secret list of drug pushers. In the fourth book, Kenyatta's Last Hit (1975), the hero is killed in a shootout.

Reviews

[Brittni · Rating 1 out of 5]

Edit: I came back to add to this review two days after reading and rating this book and I'm still feel the same: pissed. My bookclub and I discussed it today. It was very good writing, just sick subject matter. If I physically tore out the pages from chapter 12, it could still be read and understood. As a book lover, it's desecration to rip pages from a book. But chapter 12 violated my mind and my mood, so it's either 1) destroy the chapter, 2) donate the book, or 3) both. I blame the publisher because although the book is old, this edition isn't - they could've added fucking trigger warnings.




Original: Page-turning, fast-paced urban tragedy and cult classic that I will never read again. It is written by "America's #1 best-selling black author", also dubbed "the godfather of urban fiction". The cover of the version I have gives Blaxploitation vibes. Throughout the story, I hated every character and was yelling at the book. Not one person was likable, so I thought this was just going to be one of those books I like to hate. But no. I did not care for the ⚠️ on-page description of the rape of a minor in Chapter 12, that chapter alone could go to hell. Caught between 1 star and no stars, I'm not sure how to rate this, as I was okay until I wasn't - chapter 12 really pissed me the fuck off.

I have to remind myself this is fiction, and go read something light and happy to shake off the bad mood this put me in.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.'

[Sean O'Hara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Years before Quentin Tarantino wondered, "What do hitmen talk about on their way to work?" Donald Goines asked, "How does a hitman raise a family?"

The answer is, "Not well."

Daddy Cool is the hitman in question and totally awesome at his job, to the point that he earns ten grand per job (and that's 1970s money), but, despite living in a nice house in a good neighborhood (by Detroit standards), his family is falling apart. His two step-sons are losers who don't respect him, his daughter is dating a lowlife reprobate, and his wife doesn't really give a shit about any of it. And when Daddy Cool puts his foot down, things take a turn for the worse, with his daughter going off to live with her boyfriend who starts pimping her out, and his step-sons taking up the dangerous pastime of heisting drug dealers.

Think Titus Andronicus meets Superfly T.N.T.

Goines isn't the best writer in the world -- his prose is on the level of Mickey Spillane not trying very hard, and he has a tendency to tell us things rather than show them, but the plot cracks along with the last third of the book being crackerjack.

[Selena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This man took me on an adventure an I explored wow this ride was wonderful I hate to see it end!

[Lauren · Rating 2 out of 5]

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.

[Mikel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailing the downfall of a man (an assassin), his daughter (from spoiled child flush on daddy's money to starstruck lover of a pimp, and to her own descent into the pimp's rank of prostitutes), his two stepsons (wayward petty criminals, devoid of the clout and class their step daddy shows, caught in a rape that would be their fall), and the "monstrous" earl (steinbeckian giant/slow man, afraid of the world's invectives and dedicated to Daddy Cool, shot down in his final unsolicited effort to save Daddy Cool from his daughter's wraith).

All in all this is really sweet - noir tale from the streets of Detroit, with the seeming inevitability of death one expects from the genre, bound in an Af-Am context often missing from the genre.

can't wait to find more of Goines stuff.

[Alix · Rating 3 out of 5]

A 1970s Detroit tragedy.
Our hero, Daddy Cool: an aging Professional Assassin and knife-throwing expert
His daughter, Janet: a remarkably silly Young Girl completely under the spell of
Our villain: Ronald the Petty Pimp
The ungrateful stepsons: Buddy the Nicer One and Jimmy the Cuss Word
The hero's friend: Big Earl, the Kind-hearted Freak
The hero's wife: Shirley the Wife
Cab drivers, tricks, pool room clientele.

[Bernice · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you like real Hip-hop then you would understand!!!!!!!!!1

[Bryan Stubbles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't know what else I can add to the reviews that hasn't already been said.

This book contains all the trigger warnings, but mostly misogyny, sex, language and violence. It includes child rape.

As literature, the book seemingly goes against what teachers and writing advice gurus recommend (especially "show, don't tell"). The problem for them is that the storytelling definitely works.

Goines' portrait of the patriarch of an extremely dysfunctional family is a very quick read. Though the descriptions may be lacking according to what your high school creative writing teacher wanted, the mindsets and actions of the characters told me exactly where these folks came from.

I viewed the novel also as a type of Bildungsroman for the character of Janet, how she accelerated from a naïve sixteen year old to where she is at the end of the novel (I won't give away the end).

Some strong writing here.

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very hard-boiled, at the edge of nihilism.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

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.

[Starlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goines does a kind of King Lear thing with this one, drawing attention to Daddy Cool and his irresponsible pride in relation to the Pimp his daughter his running with. This book is just as exploitative as all of Goines other work ,but there is a tenderness here that I only glimpsed in some scenes of Dopefiend. While Goines is not the greatest writer, he does have a good sense of character, despite how thin they seem. I wish he lived to be a better writer. I am sure if he had another 10 years he would have come out with a masterpiece that would match his idol or better Iceberg Slim.

[Vee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why 5 stars for a nihilistic tragedy with murder, rape and more than its fair share of sexism? This is a 5-star Donald Goines book, note I don't take goodreads ratings seriously.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in checking out Donald Goines urban tragedies. This is clearly not great literature, just pure unadultered cheap entertainment.

[Bernard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting in a black-american environment made it an interesting read. It was quite a pageturner for me despite a somewhat predictable plot and outcome.

[Monique Lurry · Rating 4 out of 5]

The very first Donald Goines books I ever read. One of his classics!

[Mammi-ama · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very well written however, it's a troubling story to read.

[LaTonya · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very grim and dark novel. This was a good read and I would recommend, but the ending was crazy and unexpected.

[Charles Parker]

good

[DuVay Knox · Rating 5 out of 5]

I now present 2 U one of the baddest opening sentences in the history of PULP FICTION WRITING:

"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."

Hyperbole/Melodrama/Superhero type-a-shit and speaks to the heart of Brothaz like me raised in the confines of the Ghetto and understand this language. Because Innercity/Ghetto-speak is layered wit Extravaganza and Hyperbolic verbiage u usually find in comicbooks. Niggaz live SUPERHERO lives tho, ya digg?? Thus a lotta shit we say GOTTA B over the top slop when we rappin to ya.

A story about a BLACK HIT MAN/who is an expert KILLER wit KNIVES. Killing by NITE, Raising a Family wit all the DRAMA by DAY. The story is so Ghetto BAD its actually DAMN GOOD!! Full of TROPES riding on HOPE: a hard-headed Daughter/A Bad Attitude Wife. Everybody fulla dat HOOD HOLY GHOST. COPS fulla KORRUPT Blood. And so it goes.

DADDY COOL reads like a Graphic Superhero Comicbook/Novel in many ways. In fact, it was turned into a Graphic Novel, authored by DON GLUT, the same writer of the second STAR WARS, EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.

Meanwhile: if U A FAN of Goines U already know how this book will END: Bad!! Aint no Happy Endings in a Donald Goines book. Tupac said only GOD CAN JUDGE ME. Not, in Goines' Book. He JUDGE/GOD and EXECUTIONER and U gone GIT Yours, baby.

What U kan count on tho is that there is a MORAL to the STORY.

Butt that too, is Never what U thought it would Be.

DONALD GOINES was a MASTER of BLACK PULP FICTION. Pulp Fiction, period!!

Lovers of DONALD GOINES all insist this is was his BEST joint (altho the KENYATTA series is a close second).

Trivia Sidenote: JAMES H. READIS wrote a similar black pulp joint called MERCHANTS OF DEATH about a Black Hit Man that came out the same year (1974). And while it was written better (see my upcoming review) it wasnt quite as Sick.

[Tish Grier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donald Goines wrote what he knew: life of criminals of various kinds. The stories are not romanticized, nor are the characters the dreadful dregs of society. Goines imbues his characters with an everyday humanity. Their circumstances often lead them to what might be referred to as "a life of crime" Daddy Cool's main character is a hit man who wants out. He is concerned about his daughter but like so many men doesn't communicate well with her and drives her (like so many rebellious daughters) towards a bad crowd. This is the second time I'm reading this book, and I am always struck how smoothly Daddy Cool moves in his world, at times like a drop of water on a window: he hits then is gone. The choices of his daughter are heartbreaking and the ending is as tragic as it can get. But it is REAL. Whenever I read Goines, I can feel his characters in ways that I don't feel the characters of other crime writers. His are no stock Bad Guys nor are they glamorous Bad Guys. They are next-door neighbors you don't know are Bad Guys. And that's the way the world often works.

I have to check out some of the books written about Goines' work. He is one of the best and I would like to understand his work better.

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lurid as all hell, some of it interesting and decently done, some not. Goines isn’t a particularly strong writer, though he has his moments—the finish soundly delivers the goods. But good writing isn’t usually why you read the pulps.

However, like a decent pulp writer, Goines’ ideas and themes outpace his clunky sentences. The portrait of the streets, the misogyny, and a noir-saturated reality that, as Dassin’s Brute Force taught us, “Nobody escapes. Nobody ever really escapes.” While Goines keeps us well focused on Daddy Cool and the action unfolding around and because of him, you get the sense that the whole narrative has played out on a confined stage of someone else’s making—white society, God, whatever. It’s a portrait as raw and sordidly problematic as you’d expect, which can be equal parts illuminating and off-putting. It’s a world of crisis, written by a man whose life was crisis.

[Glen Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Published in 1974, the last year of Goines’s short, tough life—which included heroin addiction and multiple prison terms—Daddy Cool is as much Shakespearean tragedy as crime thriller. Hitman Larry Jackson is highly paid for his skill with a blade, but that earns him no respect from his children. His daughter flees to her boyfriend, who promptly turns her out on the street. A robbery of a numbers runner goes beyond sour into rancid. Things only get worse from there. Goines’s characters are mostly amoral, their fates similarly bleak. It’s not hard to draw parallels with the author’s opinion of his own prospects should he turn to crime again.

[Adam Kołodziejczyk · Rating 3 out of 5]

Grimy and grungy mood of black ghetto, pimping, killing and drug dealing - that's how one could summarize the book with one sentence. It's definitely not the best Donald Goines' book yet it still has its moments, even though the plot is sometimes too predictable.

In "Daddy Cool" you can find everything you can expect from a ghetto life-oriented book - there are vicious killings, raping (I wish there hadn't been the child rape description but unfortunately Goines decided to go all in), drug abusers etc.

[J-kwon Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my first Donald Godinez book, I found his life story interesting, as well as how his books were widely circulated in prisons. Some of the small details he provides let’s you know that he lived out some of these scenarios or at least knew how they would actually unfold.

It’s also cool to read about an era of Detroit that is now gone. I was grabbed by the book enough to keep turning the pages, I think it’s worth it, even just as a relic of history and a by-gone era.

[Chad Montabon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it - there are some commonalities - in the Goines world all black men are extremely well hung and all others can only hope not to be humiliated, but other than that a pretty engaging story. The character of 'Janet' is not really developed very well, but I guess she didn't have to be.

[Robin Jonathan Deutsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Donald Goines wrote heavy urban fiction, though very real and accurate. Daddy Cool is a short powerhouse novel that packs a wallop. Goines captures the grit of the era his books were written. The storylines and biting, not for everyone, but for those intrigued, you won’t be disappointed.

[Jasmine Turner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daddy Cool 💯💯

[Adam McPhee · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was pretty fun up until things got grim. And then, whew, things got dark fast.

Perfect execution on the ending.

[Zak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Des passages assez ignobles qui dépeignent un certaine réalité inimaginable.

[ColinJ · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the writing and dialogue is often very clunky Goines is still a vivid and important storyteller in the black crime fiction genre.