Donald Goines was a popular author of fiction written for black readership. His sixteen novels all appeared as paperback originals and have never been out of print since their original publication in the early 1970s. In his five-year literary career, Goines provided perhaps the most sustained, multifaceted, realistic fictional picture ever created by one author of the lives, choices, and frustrations of underworld ghetto blacks. Almost single-handedly, Goines established the conventions and the popular momentum for a new fictional genre, which could be called ghetto realism.

Goines was born in Detroit on 15 December 1937 to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Goines, Jr., owners of a dry-cleaning plant in that city. He attended a Catholic elementary school, where he earned good grades and was thought cooperative by his teachers. Although his father planned for Goines to take over the family cleaning business when he grew up, Goines himself wanted to be...