Comments on: Long White Con by Iceberg Slim

By: Richard Ballard

Richard Ballard — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 13:13:52 +0000

In “Trick Baby”, Robert Beck (street-named Iceberg Slim) told the story of Johnny O’Brien (street-named White Folks) and his early days running the short con — a confidence game designed to cheat the mark (victim) out of small amounts of money. Johnny O’Brien’s story continues in “Long White Con”. Johnny now calls himself Folks. He has graduated to the long con. Long cons are elaborate confidence games that include casts of rehearsed players plus elaborate sets. In long cons wealthy marks are cheated out of large amounts of money. Folks is older now; he is an experienced actor and has more self-confidence.

“Long White Con” contains some insight into long con games, but periodically Mr. Beck uses sexually-explicit material in place of content. The dialogue is not excellent and only Folks’ character is well-developed.

I do not recommend this book.
Rating: 3 / 5

By: tiffany hamer

tiffany hamer — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 12:53:37 +0000

This book is a slow read. After reading white folks several years back, i was quite excited to run across this book. i expected this book to pick up where the last left off, it hardly does so, and it barely tells a story worth telling.

Too many loose ends in this book. However due to my soft spot for the author it has earned 4 count em 4 stars. I recommend reading dope fiend or mama black widow, truly entertaining and distrubing at the same time, if thats at all possible.
Rating: 4 / 5

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 10:32:28 +0000

I’m a Beck fan indeed, but I don’t like this book. Actually, I’ve only read one other Robert Beck (Iceberg Slim) book before, and that’d be Pimp. Pimp is much, much better by a long shot. This book definantly falls short of anything Pimp has to offer. It’s not worth the buy, my friends. If you’re interested in some great reading, may I suggest you basically choose anything by Donald Goines?
Rating: 2 / 5