If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission. Even though he got his start in standup, there’s a reason Cedric Kyles is not called Cedric the Comedian. He’s hosted game shows and the Emmys , starred in Broadway plays and dramas like First Reformed , and much more, and now Cedric the Entertainer has added novelist to his resume.
His first novel, Flipping Boxcars , was published a year ago, and just got a paperback release earlier this month . You could confuse the dapper, wide-brimmed hat-wearing man on the cover for Kyles, but the book’s protagonist, Babe, is inspired by Klyes’ grandfather, who Cedric only knew from the stories he heard. “It’s this unique connection I have with him as I started to ascend as a comedian, you know, people would often tell me that I remind them of him.
” “Throughout my life, I would have these machinations of him talking to me, giving me little pieces of wisdom. And so it inspired me to write in this novel about, you know, a person I was connected to but never really met.” The book has humor, but it’s a gritty crime caper about a gambler who gets tied up in a scheme to flip bottles of booze from a train shipment, hence the title, Flipping Boxcars .
Kyles was inspired by the works of Walter Mosley, best known for the hardboiled mystery novel Devil in a Blue Dress. “So many of his books , just that writing style is what I thought ab.