Joe Nazel brings the black action novel into the era of jogging suits, ghetto blasters, cocaine and Cabbage Patch dolls. 1984's Street Wars finds private investigator Terrence Malcolm Slaughter and his ex-wrestler pal Fred 'Dead-On-Arrival' Hollis having to protect schoolteacher Pamela Middleton from the clutches of murderous pastor Reverend Truman Blood. After Blood mistakenly believes she knows the whereabouts of his stolen drugs and money. In Street Wars the action comes thick and fast, Nazel sure knew how to pen some memorably unusual set pieces. Opening with the violent hi-jacking of an ice cream truck and later a shootout on a bus which results in watermelon destruction on a scale that would make Mr. Majestic weep.
I've loved every Nazel book I've read so far, and am only baffled as to why he doesn't appear to be held in the same regard as fellow Holloway House writers Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines. To dismiss him as a hack, is to do the man a great injustice. Nazel was equally adept at writing escapist pulpy fare like the Iceman series- whose hero is like a mixture of Willie Dynamite, James Bond and Howard Hughes- as he was grittier novels like Death for Hire and Killer Cop, which aren't afraid to look the black community's problems straight in the eye. Street Wars exists someplace between these two worlds. It's landscape is an all too real one of poverty, neglect and substance abuse, yet Slaughter and D.O.A are ultra-alpha, larger than life characters designed to give Nazel's audience heroes to believe in.
The more serious aspects of the book sees Nazel turn a disdainful eye towards the media savvy pastors that were emerging in the 1980s and the cronyism between them and the black press. Considering that Nazel himself was frequently involved in the black press in a journalistic capacity, there is an air of whistleblowing about Street Wars. Which critically depicts the black press as obsequiously following around corrupt and disingenuous figures. At which point villainery in the book alternates between Rev Blood and George Hill, a prominent businessman and apparent community champion. While decrying drug dealing and street gangs for the cameras, Hill is privately getting rich from running a crack empire from a fleet of ice cream trucks. Nazel also places heavy emphasis on Slaughter and D.O.A's base of operations, the Regal Arms hotel. A place frequented by affluent blacks during the thirties, forties and fifties, only to be abandoned by them once integration came along. "When the barriers lowered those that could integrate did. That's what it was all about" writes an angered Nazel "there was no sense of shame, no remorse, no sense of loss". Not only do Slaughter and D.O.A work out of the building, but they also serve as guardians to those left behind and of a place that once symbolised hope and prosperity. Like many of Nazel's heroes, Slaughter is reserved, underappreciated but dedicated to improving the lot of his community, even if the odds are against him, and his hard work isn't always reciprocated.
I don't know if the influence of 1980s buddy comedies was rubbing off on Nazel, but there is also a sense of humour in Street Wars that wasn't visible in his 1970s books. One of Blood's goons is called RamBro, which is reason alone to love this book. While a crazy streaker causes bare-assed chaos at a religious gathering being held by the Reverend Righteous B. Goodfellow...Nazel sure was at the top of his game here when it came to catchy character names. A bit of indecent exposure that in the book's funniest line causes a female parishioner to remark "wish my ol'man was hung that like! wouldn't have to come to church to get turned on".
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