American Gangster

A TIP OF THE FEATHERED FEDORA

Although this novel is based on the screenplay by Steven Zaillian, I am also indebted to the original basic source material, Mark Jacobson’s fascinating August 14, 2000, New York magazine article, “The Return of Superfly.”

As you may have gathered from a passage in the text, the somewhat cryptic chapter titles make use of “brand names” of heroin in Harlem in the early ’70s (listed in the New York magazine article).

Despite its basis in fact, Mr. Zaillian’s fine screenplay is a fictionalized take on events in the lives of Richard Roberts and Frank Lucas. This novel takes further liberties with this fact-based tale, and the “Richie Roberts” and “Frank Lucas” in these pages must be viewed as highly fictionalized characterizations (as should “Nicky Barnes”). In interviews, for example, Mr. Roberts has made clear that his depiction as a womanizer during his first marriage was a fiction created for the film to make him seem “less vanilla.”

My thanks to Cindy Chang of Universal Pictures for providing stills and other materials throughout the writing of this novel; and to Tor editor Jim Frenkel, who was always available for help and support. Thanks also to my agent and friend, Dominick Abel.

As usual my wife, writer Barbara Collins, was my first reader and editor, and I appreciate her help and encouragement, which began long before I ever knew I’d be writing this novel, specifically on our honeymoon in Chicago, when I took her to see Cotton Comes to Harlem.