Cedric The Entertainer Talks Debut Novel ‘Flipping Boxcars’ and Getting Into the BBQ Business

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 .

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You could confuse the dapper, wide-brimmed hat-wearing man on the cover for Kyles, but the book’s protagonist, Babe, is inspired by Kyles’ 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.

Flipping Boxcars: A Novel (Paperback)

“So many of his books, just that writing style is what I thought about when I think of my grandfather and the the era he lived in. And you know, this idea of people were kind of coming out of the early Jim Crow and fighting for a real identity and a manhood shift and just, you know, all that pre-60s energy. Where it was like, I’m literally gonna fight for who I am in this real world. But for the most part, everybody had the underworld that was available to them.”

Kyles worked with author Alan Eisenstock on the book, who he connected with through Kyles’ work producing 13 Days in Ferguson , based on the book of the same name. “We had Alan work with our friend, Captain Ron Johnson, which is about Mike Brown’s killing in Missouri. And so from there, our relationship was close.”

Kyles is interested in adapting Boxcars , but his priority is on writing a sequel. “We started to pursue someone who can convert it into a screenplay. And now in that process, I’ve really kind of started to focus on writing the second book, because I want to be able to kind of let the second book really inform what the first book was all about. And then we feel like we’ll attack TV in a little more aggressive way.”

In addition to his novel, the Missouri native’s other recent endeavors include launching a BBQ brand with longtime friend Anthony Anderson, called AC Barbeque.

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“The MVP” is AC’s signature rub, and the brand also offers “Midnight Smoke” and “Lemon Stepper,” in addition to grilling accessories .

“A lot of people were doing alcohol brands. We wanted to do something that felt as inviting to us, as going out and having a drink with someone, and barbeque just really came naturally to us. You know, I didn’t see any really celebs in that space. You had noticed that there weren’t any African Americans with a real national brand that it was only, you know, like KC Masterpiece and Sweet Baby Ray’s.”

“And so we developed the rubs and the sauces, had a relationship with Walmart , so we’re in over 2000 stores and Walmarts. We’re in Lowe’s, we’re in HEB in Texas, on Amazon now . And that led to us having a relationship with Robert Earl to build restaurants.”

The first AC Barbeque restaurant is slated to open in November in Los Angeles, and the seventh season of Cedric’s sitcom The Neighborhood returns on Oct. 21 to CBS and streaming on Paramount+ .