Clarence Cooper

The Farm is a Dante-esque tour of the levels of hell to be found in a federal drug rehabilitation center and a powerful story of love growing in the most unnatural conditions. It is a stylistic tour de force and one of the most honest and unrelenting novels dealing with drug addiction ever written.

Black brings together three short novels by Clarence Cooper, Jr., a rediscovered genius of African-American writing. "The Dark Messenger" is a short, sizzling novel in which a reporter for a black newspaper discovers that truth and justice are no match for the next handout from the corrupt powers that be. "Yet Prices Follow" and "Yet We Many" are both sardonic crime novellas set in the worlds of the numbers racket and Black Muslims, respectively. All of them demonstrate the hard-edged, ultra-hip style of realism that was Clarence Cooper's trademark.

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.