The Farm (1967) – Clarence Cooper Jr

Not surprisingly, given their similar backgrounds, Iceberg Slim appears in Goines' "Read On" list:

READ ON Clarence Cooper, Chester Himes, Iceberg Slim

Cutting Iceberg from the equation, I had two to choose from and I ended up with Clarence Cooper Jr. (The "Jr" is very important. Without it you are talking about a U.S. judge, rather than "the black William Burroughs".)

The "Must Read" list for Clarence Cooper Jr is

MUST READ The Farm, The Scene, Weed

which sound like they might be a trilogy. Only The Farm was available from the library, making the choice of what to read straightforward.

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The farm of the title turns out to be a narcotics rehabilitation penitentiary, the Lexington Narcotics Farm. The book tells the story of the inmate John and his efforts to get along inside, finding work as an office boy and pursuing a romance with a woman Sonja in the women's wing, but also finding some sort of awakening of self-realisation within himself. This could easily be the story of Iceberg Slim or Donald Goines, or most significantly, of Cooper himself, who was in and out of prison with a heroin addiction.

It is a fantastically written book, with a brave inventiveness in the use of language. The story of John is also very good and very worthy. However, I must admit that it simply washed over me. Perhaps I don't care enough about recovering junkies or perhaps I've become inured to the topics of drug abuse and lost potential at this point in my trail.

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So what was I missing? The cover of the copy of the book I read claimed that The Farm deserved all the literary prizes and grants going. Cult Fiction mentions that The Farm is experimental in style, as I picked up, and The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction claims that it is influenced by Dante's Inferno...damn, I didn't get that – I should really read these biographies more closely before attempting the book.

The Farm was Cooper's last big attempt at success. His first book The Scene had received acclaim amongst other authors, but failed to ignite a literary career. His later novels received only cheap paperback releases. His failure was apparently largely due to his problems with heroin and prison, which made it difficult for him to get a good publishing deal. However, clearly he would have achieved the success he deserved if he had been better received by the public. His daring literary style wasn't appreciated and the pessimism of his stories wasn't what people wanted to read. After The Farm flopped despite his greatest efforts, he gave up writing and succumbed to his destructive lifestyle, dying alone and impoverished in a New York YMCA.

I feel kinda crappy after learning all this. I'm not at all responsible for Cooper's failure to achieve his deserved acclaim (I was seven when he died), but I did dismiss the novel for similar reasons to his contemporary audience. I feel prospectively culpable in a strange sort of way. I should go back and read the The Farm again and try to appreciate it better. And so should all of you.