He devoured the Horatio Alger stories, where poor boys overcome adversity to make good.
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In a 1966 New York Herald Tribune feature by his former office manager-turned-journalist, Marilyn Mercer claimed, "Ebony never drew criticism from Negro groups (in fact, Eisner was commended by some for using him), perhaps because, although his speech pattern was early Minstrel Show, he himself derived from another literary tradition: he was a combination of Tom Sawyer and Penrod, with a touch of Horatio Alger hero, and color didn't really come into it".
The New York Times Book Review saw the book as the embodiment of "hip-hop's Horatio Alger" myth: “Ice-T, in short, is someone hip-hop might have invented if he hadn’t invented himself," reviewer Baz Dreisinger wrote. "A goes-down-easy mélange of memoir, self-help, and amateur criminology. Ultimately, Ice showcases an eminently reasonable, positively likeable guy, the gangsta rapper even a parent could love.”