The Making of a ‘Monster’ : MONSTER: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member, <i> By Sanyika Shakur, a.k.a. Kody Scott (Atlantic Monthly Press: $22; 383 pp.)</i>

Yo. “Monster” is his moniker and melodrama is his claim. Meet 29-year-old gang expert, Kody Scott, a.k.a. Sanyika Shakur--a walking-stalking incarcerated end-product of America’s 500-year assault on the Black psyche. Scott-Shakur grew up at Florence and Normandie, flash point of last year’s riot following the Rodney King beating trial. At last he has emerged out of the dark hole of mis-education, malignant political neglect and joblessness and into the literary limelight.

The former Crip Dog altruistically spills all for the betterment of most of humanity. In his pithy introduction, a begrudgingly repentant and emotionally reborn Shakur boldly throws down:

“I have pushed people violently out of this existence and have fathered three children. I have felt completely free and have sat in total solitary confinement in San Quentin state prison. I have shot numerous people and have been shot seven times myself. I have been in gunfights in South Central and knife fights in Folsom state prison. Today, I languish at the bottom of one of the strictest maximum-security state prisons in this country.”

I am intimately acquainted with Scott-Shakur’s stomping grounds. I spent over half my life there as one of Monster’s neighbors. I am not only a reviewer but a witness. And I know that what Scott-Shakur says about South Central, the failings of law enforcement and the cruelties of poverty is the gospel. Yet, I read “Monster” with conflicting emotions, vacillating between commiseration and disbelief.

In the orally rich tradition of Afro-American prison mack, “Monster” is a first-person chronicle that exquisitely documents urban warfare in the streets of Los Angeles since 1975, providing ample glimpses of its reach into the claustrophobic prison system.

From the jump, Scott-Shakur, adopting a love-warrior persona, sends out bullets of peace to those he respects; Teflon bullets “are sent to the sellouts.” But he’s teasingly vague early on, sidestepping the circumstances shaping his pre-adolescence. Instead he begins by describing his initiation into the Eight-Tray Crips “at the ripe old age of 11.”

After a cursory survey of his original set of “homeboyz” and road dogs, Scott-Shakur takes a five-chapter, six-year historical tour of shootings, arrests, revenge killings and intermittent visits to juvenile hall, punctuated by detailed explanations of the bizarre etiquette of gangbanging, its fashions, its confused and shifting loyalties, its rapacious codes of conduct, its palm-slapping jargon.

Using admirable skill, considering the givens, Scott-Shakur pens this vicious treatise with relentless sincerity riddled occasionally by humorous anecdotes. He reveals his brutal naivete and stunning ignorance with a self-congratulatory tone that makes some of his confessions unintentionally funny. More often they have a staggering simplicity:

“I had no adequate answer then for Mom about what was happening to me. Actually, I wasn’t fully aware of the gang’s strong gravitational pull. I knew, for instance, that the total lawlessness was alluring, and that the sense of importance, self-worth and raw power was exciting, stimulating, and intoxicating beyond any other high on this planet. But still I could not explain what had happened to pull me in so far that nothing outside of my set mattered.”

According to “Monster,” civilians are fair game for victimization. There are no innocents, only marks. “Monster’s” blistering rap style leans heavily on Western and Mafia movie imagery, militaristic parlance and corporation-speak. Scott-Shakur also uses considerable Black idiom, frequently bending the corners of English, employing the deliberate misuses or bastardizations characteristic of the rebellious Black spirit--for example, using “overstood” in lieu of “understood.” Caucasians are referred to flippantly as “Americans.”

As written text, “Monster” is by no means perfect. Aureate cliches like “moment of truth” abound. Occasionally, Scott-Shakur steps out of his past to preach to his present-day reader. There’s so little description that I couldn’t tell whether he was protecting himself from lawsuits, or protecting his intimates from retribution, or both. Paper-thin, faceless characters randomly appear and disappear. But as Scott-Shakur himself suggests, this anonymous body count is perhaps a genuine side-effect of his drug-and-guns existence rather than a deficit in writing skills.

Despite weaknesses in craft, Scott-Shakur proves an impressively capable storyteller, loading “Monster” with some chilling moments, as with one passage where he treats guns as if they function without human agency: “There were three occupants, a .38 service revolver, and a pump shotgun, sawed off at the barrel for a spraying effect and sawed off at the stock for stealth and close combat.” Eerily, there are more of these detailed and loving descriptions of weapons than there are of friends and relatives. Which seems to be the point.

Sex and racism on the streets are also sketchily treated. But things get graphic when Scott-Shakur encounters them within various penal institutions:

“It was in Los Angeles County Jail that I learned that Americans have a thing for attacking our private parts during a scuffle. Every incident I’ve been involved in or witnessed, the private parts of the beatee would be viciously attacked without missing a beat, as if some personal grudge existed between them and our dicks. Later on I learned that it did.”

Survival behind bars in this telling is intense if constrained. Intrigue and subterfuge are fueled by rumor and speculation. As with life on the outside, life inside takes on even greater them-versus-us proportions as Monster Kody quickly ascends to the heights of gang hierarchy. But it is in prison that he discovers a mentor, gets religion and is introduced to the teachings of Malcom X.

The remainder of Kody Scott’s story is told in his enlightened incarnation as Sanyika Shakur, who strives to dissuade other youth from joining gangs. But it’s unlikely “Monster” will reach any of the young Black males to whom it’s urgently directed. “Monster” has already been pre-sold in eight foreign countries, was excerpted for “Esquire’s” April 1993 issue, and is, according to the press kit, “the talk of the publishing world.” This hype-process lends strong credence to Scott-Shakur’s shopworn argument that society creates what it needs. (Dear Monster: Being exploited goes with the territory. Kick back and enjoy the attention for the minute it lasts.) Unfortunately, those who pander to White paranoia about Blacks use books like “Monster” to justify, instead of rectify, the racist infrastructure that persistently breeds more sociopaths-of-color than college grads.

There’s no doubt Scott-Shakur is lucky to be still among the living. But empathy will prove nearly impossible for anyone who doesn’t pack huge reservoirs of understanding and forgiveness. Sympathy for Scott-Shakur’s change of heart as a reformed New African, is muted by the force of his earlier accounts of ruthlessness. As Scott-Shakur must expect, many will doubt his claim of expanded consciousness and born-again militancy. Uncomfortably, many others will misinterpret his grim morality tale as a romanticizing of criminality.

Regrettably, the politically correct awareness that marks the closing chapters of “Monster” is not enough to offset the gripping street and prison adventures of preceding chapters. Like Alex Haley’s “Autobiography of Malcolm X,” the most horrifying scenes are also the most entertaining. And like Iceberg Slim’s “Pimp” (1969), “Monster” might be misconstrued by the young-and-stupid as an instruction manual. Yet “Monster” possesses an unsophisticated and endearing rawness absent in Haley and Slim.

Considering its length, “Monster” is a super-fast read. Few will be able to put it down, though probably for the wrong reasons. Underneath the posturing, the machismo and the mayhem something remarkable, if awkward, happens. Like the slave narratives, Scott-Shakur’s “Monster” is unquestionably one of the most disturbingly authentic triumphs of the human spirit ever executed in print. That he bares his soul possibly to save others is ironic, for this gallant effort will largely go underappreciated.

After devouring Scott-Shakur’s violent chunk-of-life, many will undoubtedly be relieved that this particular Monster is now off the streets.