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Although he He started out in stand-up, and there's a reason Cedric Kyle isn't called Cedric the Comedy. He has hosted game shows and Emmys, and starred in Broadway plays and plays such as The first reformerAnd much more, and now Cedric the Entertainer has added novelist to his resume. His first novel, Moving cartspublished a year ago, just received a paperback edition earlier this month.
You might confuse the dapper, wide-brimmed man in the hat on Kyle's cover, but the novel's protagonist, Pip, is inspired by Claes's grandfather, whom Cedric only knew from the stories he heard. “It's this unique relationship that I had with him when I was starting to come up as a comedian, you know, people often tell me that I remind them of him.”
“All my life, I've been letting these machinations speak to me, give me bits of wisdom. So I was inspired to write this novel about someone I was connected to but had never met.
The book has a sense of humor, but it is a gritty crime thriller about a gambler who gets roped into a scheme to flip liquor bottles from a train shipment, hence the title, Moving carts. Kyle was inspired by the works of Walter Mosley, who was famous for his hard-boiled mystery novels Devil in a blue dress.
Flipping Boxcars: A Novel (Paperback)
“A lot of his books, that writing style is what I think of when I think of my grandfather and the era that he lived in. And, you know, this idea of people kind of having early Jim Crow and fighting for a real identity and a change in masculinity, you know, all the energy of pre The 60s where it was, I would literally fight for who I was in this real world but for the most part, everyone had an underworld that was available to them.
Kyle worked with author Alan Eisenstock on the book, with whom he connected through producing Kyle's work 13 days in Fergusonbased on the book of the same name. “We had Alan work with our friend, Captain Ron Johnson, on the killing of Mike Brown in Missouri. From there, our relationship became close.”
Kyle is interested in adapting Transport vehiclesBut his priority is to write something else. “We started pursuing someone who could turn it into a screenplay. And now in the process, I'm really starting to focus on writing the second book, because I want to be able to let the second book inform what the first book is about. And then we feel like we're going to attack television in a more aggressive way.” .
In addition to his novel, the Missouri native's other recent endeavors include launching a barbecue brand with his old friend Anthony Anderson, called AC Barbeque.
AC BBQ Best Seasoning
“The MVP” is the premium product for air conditioners, and the brand also offers “Midnight Smoke” and “Lemon Stepper,” as well as barbecue accessories.
“A lot of people were doing alcohol brands. We wanted to do something that felt appealing to us, like going out and having a drink with someone, and barbecuing became a natural thing for us. You know, I didn't really see any celebrities in that space. I noticed that no There's no African American that has a real national brand, you know, just like KC Masterpiece and Sweet Baby Ray's.
“So we developed the rubs and sauces, and we had a relationship with Walmart, so we're in over 2,000 Walmart stores. We're at Lowe's, we're at HEB in Texas, and on Amazon now. That led to us establishing a relationship with Robert Earle to build Restaurants.
The first AC Barbeque restaurant is scheduled to open in November in Los Angeles, and the seventh season of Cedric's sitcom. The neighborhood It returns October 21 on CBS and streams on Paramount+.
