"’Black women are better whores,’ proclaims a character — who is one herself — in I, Stagolee (North Atlantic, $15.95), Cecil Brown’s second book about an 1895 murder that spawned a ballad that some say spawned rap. Brown’s Berkeley Ph.D is in narrative African-American literature and folklore; this rich tale probes a sensitive, intelligent pimp — "We pimps … protected our women against the brutal police. … Never hit a woman and she will always find her way back to you" — who owned sixty Stetsons and killed a man for a hat. The word "mack," we learn, comes from the French maquereau — mackerel, snif snif."—East Bay Express"I, Stagolee puts the ‘e’ in enjoyable and the ‘e’ in exquisite. A great novel."- film director Melvin Van Peebles"Cecil Brown’s brilliant book provides a historical context for the current pimp craze."-novelist Ishmael Reed"With humor, zest, imagination, and affection, Stagolee (storyteller and participant) tells us straight out who really shot whom and why. This is imaginative fiction at its best."-Al Young, novelist and Poet Laureate of California (2006)"Cecil Brown has captured the underside of political intrigue and corruption that unfurled within complex racial patterns at a time when prostitution was legal and black men could still wield influence during elections…"-Kathleen Cleaver, Senior Lecturer, Yale University and Emory Law School, editor of Target Zero: A Life in Writing by Eldridge Cleaver"I, Stagolee reads like an imaginative, elucidating, and heartfelt set of liner notes to this haunting tale of the original black anti-hero."-Paul Beatty, editor and author of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor and author, The White Boy Shuffle
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