Never Die Alone: Donald Goines, Holloway House and "The Black Experience Book"

During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, concurrent with the emergence of Blaxploitation cinema, came an unprecedented boom in Black pulp fiction paperbacks dubbed, “Black Experience Books.” Donald Goines, whose novels featured the fantastic exploits of male hustlers embroiled in urban underworlds, was the most prolific and impactful writer of the burgeoning genre. However, Goines’ work was fatefully distributed by the small but mightily exploitative, Holloway House Publishing. Focusing on Holloway House’s precarious publishing dynamics and promotional efforts, this talk will explore how Donald Goines became the figurehead of “The Black Experience Book.”

Zachary Manditch-Prottas is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of African and African-American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He earned his Ph.D. in African American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching work at the nexus of African American literature, Black cultural studies and theories of gender and sexuality.