Slim's mother leaves Steve and they go to live in a hotel. At one point, Steve even smashes Slim's kitten against a wall for defecating on the floor. Living with Steve is a nightmare for Iceberg. Telling his father Steve is a cousin, they literally rob Slim's father of everything he owns in order to pay him back for leaving her all those years ago.

Steve and Slim's mother plot to take revenge on Slim's father. Henry dies a year after Slim and his mother leave him. He misses Henry for the rest of his life. Iceberg is destroyed by leaving Henry and cries as hard as he can.

Giving Henry a weak excuse that they will return again soon, Slim's mother packs up Iceberg and meets up with Steve.

Slim's mother, however, falls in love with a scoundrel named Steve. Henry reciprocates the affection and loves Iceberg and his mother immensely. Henry is the only father figure Iceberg has in his lifetime and is the best person in his life. Slim and his mother move to Indianapolis afterwards and a man visiting his relatives, Henry Upshaw, immediately falls in love with Slim's mother. He is left alone with a babysitter named Maude who sexually abuses him when he is only 3 years old. From then on, his mother tries to raise him on her own, but since there is only one parent and she is responsible for supporting them both, Slim is often left alone as a child. As an infant, his father becomes enraged and slams his body against a wall, walking out on the family. Originally, Slim is little more than a con man in the streets, but after learning and listening from the other men in the jail who used to be pimps, he is enticed and decides to take on that lifestyle for his own.Īs soon as Slim is born, he has problems. He recounts his childhood and the choices he made that led him to become a pimp at the age of nineteen, after a stint in jail. Ultimately, Slim's novel is a book about the choices a black man has in the world before desegregation. Through various events in his life, he ultimately becomes a pimp in between jail stints. In his book Pimp: The Story of My Life, Iceberg Slim recounts his personal autobiography as a intellectually-gifted teenager growing up in the world before desegregation.

The story of my life novel