Holloway House released Double Dunk (1980),
which was initially rejected by other publishers.
A novelized biography of the Harlem basketball
legend Earl “the Goat” Manigault, the inventor
of the double dunk shot, Double Dunk chronicles
Earl’s life as he succumbs to heroin addiction and
petty crimes before making a miraculous recovery
while in jail. Once out, Manigault forms his own
summer Goat Tournament for youngsters. With
a masterful blend of the stream-of-conscious-
ness technique and street dialogue, Beckham, like
CLAUDE BROWN, shows how a black man who grew
up in mean urban streets can transcend the adver-
sities he has to face, give back to the community,
and live his dreams through others. In 1996, Re-
bound, the movie based on Earl Manigault’s life,
aired on HBO, featuring Don Cheadle, Forest
Whitaker, Eriq LaSalle, Loretta Devine, James Earl
Jones, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Beckman’s difficulties with publishers encour-
aged him to take matters into his own hands. In
1982, with the assistance of students from Brown,
he compiled, edited, and published the first edition
of Black Student’s Guide to Colleges, which was well
received in the academy. In 1989, in Maryland, he
founded Beckham House Publishers (now called
the Beckman Publications Group), a major black-
oriented book company.
Before launching his career as a writer, Beck-
ham worked as an assistant editor of New York’s
Chase Manhattan News. In July 1999 he published
his long-awaited novel, You Have a Friend: The Rise
and Fall and Rise of the Chase Manhattan Bank. It
became the first serialized full-length book to be
published on the Internet. A compelling narrative
combining historical events, You Have a Friend de-
tails a richly textured social history of corporate
America. Beckham presents, from firsthand expe-
rience as a Chase public relations writer, a portrait
that goes beyond mere institutional history and
focuses on landmark characters and events. One
of the dominant themes throughout the novel is
the inability of the Chase Manhattan Bank to de-
fine itself with authority during the 1960s and the
1970s, two of the most turbulent decades of the
bank’s existence.
Beckman has been published in Black Review,
Brown Alumni Monthly, Esquire, Intellectual Digest,
and New York Magazine. Beckman published the
novel Will You Be Mine? in 2006.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Loeb, Jeff. “Barry Beckham.” In The Oxford Com-
panion to African American Literature, edited by
William L. Andrews, Frances Smith Foster, and
Trudier Harris, 55. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1997.
Umphlett, Wiley Lee. “The Black Man as Fictional
Athlete; ‘Runner Mack,’ the Sporting Myth, and
the Failure of the American Dream.” Modern Fic-
tion Studies 33, no. 1 (Spring 1987): 73–83.
Watkins, Mel. Introduction to Runner Mack. New
York: Morrow, 1972. Washington, DC: Howard
University Press, 1983.
Loretta G. WoodardBeloved Toni Morrison (1987)
According to critics, Beloved fits into the subgenre
of African-American literature known as the “neo-
freedom or neo-slave narrative.” The immediate
setting is Ohio in 1873–1875. The plot unfolds
through flashbacks and the narrative voices of the
central characters, primarily Sethe Suggs, who, at
age 13, was taken as a slave to Sweet Home, a Ken-
tucky plantation owned by the Garners. Mr. Gar-
ner was a relatively benevolent slave master, but
upon his death, his cruel relative “Schoolteacher”
replaces him. Although Sethe and the other slaves,
Paul A, PAU L D, Paul F, Sixo, Halle (Sethe’s hus-
band), and their children, resolve to escape, only
Sethe and her children succeed. Eventually, they
arrive in Cincinnati, at 124 Bluestone Road, where
BABY SUGGS, Sethe’s mother-in-law, lives. Surviv-
ing the arduous journey, after giving birth along
the way to her fourth child, Denver, Sethe enjoys
28 free days—loving her children in a way she
had not before dared—before slave catchers lo-
cate them and attempt to return them to slavery.
Sethe sets out to kill her children and then com-
mit suicide, but manages only to kill her “already40 Beloved