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Last Exit To Brooklyn

by Hubert Selby Jr., Gilbert Sorrentino (Editor)

3.96 of 5 stars 3.96 · rating details · 8,365 ratings · 514 reviews

The first novel to articulate the rage and pain of life in "the other America, " "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is a classic of postwar American writing. Selby's searing portrait of the powerless, the homeless, the dispossessed, is a fiercely and frighteningly apposite today as when it was first published twenty-five years ago.

Paperback, 290 pages

Published by Marion Boyars (first published 1964)

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Apr 23, 2009 A.K. rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: nausea swim team

Shelves: druuugs, i-me-mind

Rare is the book that leaves me so disoriented and raw-nerved. When I finished this I sat slack-jawed for a minute letting my cigarette burn out and trying to fix my mind on something/anything. This is an excruciatingly penetrating vision of the total dregs; a narrative of self-delusion, rough trade, addiction and thanatos thanatos thanatos. Selby, Jr. never seems to slant toward exploitation or pulp and strangely enough, in spite of the godawful hopeless hate-filled suckers that populate his wr...more

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Aug 22, 2011 bobbygw rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: literary classics, 20th century fiction, American existentialism

Shelves: re-read, fiction, literary-classics

Controversy has always surrounded Selby, Jr.'s writing. From the start, with Last Exit (being his first novel), his original UK publisher Calder and Boyers faced government prosecution in 1967, under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. It was a major trial, especially as it was originally found guilty of being `obscene', and because, more importantly, the Appeal in 1968 overturned that decision and paved the way for a much more open-minded interpretation of literature as to merit.

In some intervie...more Controversy has always surrounded Selby, Jr.'s writing. From the start, with Last Exit (being his first novel), his original UK publisher Calder and Boyers faced government prosecution in 1967, under the 1959 Obscene Publications Act. It was a major trial, especially as it was originally found guilty of being `obscene', and because, more importantly, the Appeal in 1968 overturned that decision and paved the way for a much more open-minded interpretation of literature as to merit.

In some interviews, and in one introduction to the novel that he wrote, Selby himself said that when he was writing this novel (six years in the making), he `was only aware of the rage and anger within' (quoted from the QPB edition in 1994). He also acknowledged that, while he has no favourite among his novels, he singles out The Room, and then this novel, notably, because through it he `truly did learn how to write' (quote from same edition).

Set in New York in the late 1950s, the story grabs you from the start, conveying an incredibly raw, visceral, yet always disturbingly poetic quality throughout. It is superb for its genuine grittiness, horribly grim reality and ugliness of modern inner city life - of thought, attitude, action and feeling - both projected outwards, as well as internalised, all of which is captured through numerous voices of the dispossessed, alienated, disenfranchised. Selby is in the tradition of naturalist/realist fiction, but he goes a significant step further, in that, often through his first-person character narratives/viewpoints, he achieves an hallucinatory quality whose intensity strengthens the realities he conveys.

One noteworthy critic, James R. Giles, in his excellent study of Selby's works, Understanding Hubert Selby, Jr., wrote `It is true that, while all the characters in the novel are victimized by a brutal environment, they are guilty of moral failures that make their victimization complete and irrevocable', and this is done by Selby's exploring without fear or judgement powerful themes that resonant as much today as they did on first publication in 1964 in the US: drug addiction, misogyny, violence of rape and beatings, prostitution, the relentless drudgery and alienation of most jobs as well as unemployment, without value or meaning and life in general that is suffused with hate and a distressingly dark, twisted humour (when not expressed through seething resentment or explosive anger).

I reckon, Dante would have regarded Last Exit as a worthy match to his own vision of Hell - especially through characters who represent the sick underbelly of the city: self-deluding, beaten-up prostitutes, incredibly violent youths and gangs, a desperately lonely, elderly woman who has no life other than pathetic memories of her dead husband and son, among others. As for disturbing, truly dark humour, one such example will give you a powerful sense of it: at one point, two women sitting chatting on a bench in a miserable New York housing project, joke about and look forward with sick, twisted glee to the prospect of a baby - crawling on an upper-storey tenement window-ledge - falling to its death: they're disappointed that it is saved in the nick of time).

In particular, the lives of a handful of individuals are portrayed with great psychological depth, narrated most often from the first-person viewpoint, in a stream-of-consciousness fashion that remains clear, coherent and compelling. These viewpoints capture their desperation, self-loathing, hatred and confusion about themselves and their environments: defiant yet self-deluding Georgette, a hip drag queen who is pathetically in love with Vinnie and convinced she can change him for the better and that he will truly love her; while he himself is a psychopathic and sociopathic gang leader interested in only in sadistic and often instant gratification; Tralala, a violently angry, predatory prostitute who ultimately is destroyed in the most horrifying way imaginable; Harry - interestingly, that name is ubiquitous among male characters in Selby's fiction, acting as a synonym for the type of man who is misogynistic, dispossessed, angry, self-loathing, and self-deluding - who is a trade union leader, loathsome, selfish, arrogant and boring, who is despised or at best tolerated by his co-workers - and, worse, whose misogyny is so genuinely convincing and disturbing, which we hear, being `inside his head', listening trapped to his banal voice, desperation, loathing and perspective, such that it makes Bateman's misogyny in American Psycho appear not only over the top, but utterly unreal (and never mind Ellis' darkly satirical intentions).

Selby has been described by the literature academic and critic, Josephine Hendin, as a `clinician of violence ... whose novels have the immediacy of art' Vulnerable People: A View of American Fiction Since 1945, which I think is true; likewise, he is a literary master of demonstrating through his characters a moral ugliness, misogyny and existential despair, and whose power as a novelist is unmatched and unprecedented in fiction (Sartre's famous Nausea (Penguin Modern Classics), for example, is a happy walk in the park compared to Selby's vision). He is a truly remarkable writer, and, while he wrote six novels in his lifetime, I believe the most powerful and compelling (while not the darkest), remains Last Exit. I cannot recommend it highly enough - it is a genuine work of art, but its power is dark and troubling, so I would likewise highly recommend you stay clear of this novel if you find yourself in a depressed frame of mind... Understanding Hubert Selby JR.(less)

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Jul 26, 2011 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Good God, this is a brutal book. The writing style's brilliant, but the stories are so vivid that the pain of the characters is visceral. It's not a novel so much as it's a series of short stories that tie together to portray the hell-hole that was 1950's Brooklyn. There was a whole obscenity case about this book when it was published in the early 1960's: the story that received the most attention for being obscene, however, was not the one I found most painful. The most infamous story was "Tral...more

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Feb 04, 2010 Evan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-reads, my-faves, tami-tomes, deliciously-nasty, __in-my-collection, gay-interest, labor, sexuality, transgressive, ny-ny, grove-press, favorites, evans-alternative-100

HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION!
Grabbed this from my stash Saturday evening and started blazing through it, rapt! Could not put it down. Finished Sunday...

Uncompromising portrait of petty slothfulness and violence in grim Brooklyn in the 1950s. The 1989 Jennifer Jason Leigh film was fine and disturbing, but it can't capture the earnest immediacy of this book and the machine-gun style of expression of the colloquialisms and the stream of consciousness. This is masterly, it seems to have flowed off Selby's...more

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May 09, 2013 Stuart rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: counter-culture, literature

Irvine Welsh has stated that this is his favourite book and the inspiration for 'Trainspotting'. With that in mind I was expecting something dark, graphic and visceral and Selby does not disappoint. Much like 'Trainspotting', this tale is an intertwining collection of characters living brutal existences in the lowest of conditions in Brooklyn. Heroin is replaced here with liquor but the violence and degradation are the same, especially for the female characters...this is 1950's Brooklyn don't fo...more

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Jan 21, 2013 Jen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Many reviews have used the word "brutal" to describe this and I cannot think of a better, more succinct description. Reading this left me unsettled for days. The raw hopelessness of the characters' lives and the blunt manner in which we meet and observe them, and the tragedy of their existences all feels so very real. Uncomfortably real. Those lives aren't my own, but it doesn't take much to see how the luck of one's birth dictates much of the rest of trajectory of one's existence and, in that r...more

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Sep 22, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: 501 Must Read Books (Modern Fiction)

Shelves: 501, drugs, sex, race, challenging, banned

My second Selby and I was just as amazed. My first one of him was his 1978-published book, Requiem for a Dream (4 stars also).

Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004) wrote like no other or maybe I have not encountered those "others" yet. I have encountered Saramago's and Garcia Marquez's novels with practically no punctuation marks. Selby's had some but he substituted apostrophes with forward slashes "/". According to Wiki, Selby's reason for this was the symbol's proximity to his typewriter, thus allowi...more My second Selby and I was just as amazed. My first one of him was his 1978-published book, Requiem for a Dream (4 stars also).

Hubert Selby, Jr. (1928-2004) wrote like no other or maybe I have not encountered those "others" yet. I have encountered Saramago's and Garcia Marquez's novels with practically no punctuation marks. Selby's had some but he substituted apostrophes with forward slashes "/". According to Wiki, Selby's reason for this was the symbol's proximity to his typewriter, thus allowing uninterrupted typing. Selby was a high school dropout and got seriously ill (his lung was operated due to tuberculosis) while in the Marines. Suffering from chronic pulmonary problems for the rest of his life, even without formal training, he began to write reasoning to himself that "I know the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer."

And he did and I am not only amazed but also inspired. Who knows? I even have already attended a writing workshop. Selby did not and yet his writing was brilliant. He did not use quotations and was not concerned about grammar. His prose was stripped down, bare and blunt, Wiki says. For me, that's what makes his unorthodox writing simply beautiful.

This book contains the five short stories that were originally published in magazines. The Queen is Dead in 1958 and Tralala in 1961. Both stories, in fact all of the 5 stories in this book, deal with and vivid depiction of homosexuality, drug addition, rapes, pornography and cruelty to ones' own children. This detailed shameless portrayal of post-war Brooklyn in the 50's was the reason why this book was originally banned in Great Britain and Italy in 1967.

My first impression of the book was: shocking. A homosexual being beaten by his lover. A prostitute getting gang-raped. Small toddlers being unattended because the father is a slob and the mother has to work. A closet union shop steward manages the picket in the morning and moonlights as a gay lover frequenting the gay bars at night and dreaming of killing his wife. All these disturbing characters can make a reader drop the book and move to one with positive and uplifting theme (I used to do that, so I know what I am talking about). However, Selby's prose is beautiful and has the ability to make his characters practically leap off the pages of his book. You can't help but be sympathetic to those people whose main problem really is that they are poor.

Hold on though. There is Ada the widow who still washes and irons the pajamas of her long-dead husband and puts them on their marital bed. The woman in the neighborhood talk at her back referring her as "that filthy Jew" and the children mock her. Selby used Ada as the only sympathetic character in this book and it worked like magic because of the contrast and irony that she provided.

One of my unforgettable reads this year.

(less)

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Jul 11, 2012 Izzy rated it 2 of 5 stars

I read Last Exit to Brooklyn a few years ago, when I actually lived in the titular city and tried to “run” a ~~regular drinking session where my friends and I discussed incest~~ book club. I chose this book for: its reputation, a trusted friend’s personal recommendation, and because Hubert Selby Jr. also wrote Requiem for a Dream (never read, love the movie). Though I generally have a sunny disposition, I also have a penchant for sad songs, movies about addiction, and slutty women. It is a reflectio...more

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Dec 12, 2012 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 5-read-2012, favorites-recommend

This story is the kind that ignites passion for reading and for experiencing the world through a different mind. Selby has a beautiful way of writing, the particular down to earth style that I love. This book has everything I require of an excellent book. It educates me, the story entertains me, and it gives me the enjoyment of reading beautiful prose. This is a book about violence and the kind of environment that fosters a very particular rage, inner city poverty and repression. The reason I en...more This story is the kind that ignites passion for reading and for experiencing the world through a different mind. Selby has a beautiful way of writing, the particular down to earth style that I love. This book has everything I require of an excellent book. It educates me, the story entertains me, and it gives me the enjoyment of reading beautiful prose. This is a book about violence and the kind of environment that fosters a very particular rage, inner city poverty and repression. The reason I enjoy these kinds of stories is that I see them as expressing those feelings that the uneducated rarely get to express. Everyone experiences pain, but it is true that there are times when people don't feel fulfillment or even a hint of joy and for some it lasts a lifetime. I don't believe that everyone has "good" things in their life, at least not the way we may think of it for ourselves. So although this characters live bleak and miserable lives, it rings true for me. It is books of joy that don't ring true to me and are more the exception in realms of poverty than the norm.
The characteristic that sets it apart from other books is that it gives no judgment and no commentary. It is a simple look at what actions people take and what their own motivations are for doing those actions. It reminds me of Native Son, which is one of my favorite books for the same reason. We are all a product of our culture and he demonstrates that fluently. These sub-cultures that exist on the fringe of what is considered mainstream and correct are rarely written about in an understanding way. It isn't that he is being preachy and trying to explain why compassion is important in life, he shows why it is important by simply being honest. The mindset of having a choice is what is missing in his characters and for good reason. Choice comes from being aware of the choices that exist and having the skill to accomplish the tasks required to get to those goals. These characters have neither the awareness that a choice existed for them, nor the skills required to reach those choices. When you become an adult no one cares what causes you to do what you do. Our enlightened mind wants to justify and give reason, but the actions are all that the world sees. They don't see your personal youthful pains or psychological diagrams of where your own empathy evaporated to. What I wanted to know was what were these characters thoughts right now at this crazy moment. Selby provided that for me. There is a danger to never asking why people do evil things. Understanding a different mindset is a part of why books enlighten us. We are all beasts at the heart and at the end. It is good to understand that we are all both a perpetrator and a victim depending on situations and timing.

"Not as man and woman or two men, not as friends or lovers, but as two who love.. these three minutes together in a world of beauty"
Thank you Selby for giving me a few hours of a world of beauty.(less)

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Aug 05, 2008 Robin Branson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: forever-favorites

One of the best books I have ever read, hands down. I discovered it at a time where I was aching to find the style that best suited me as a reader, the genre above all others that roped me in and never let go. Selby helped me find it.

After reading the inside of the box for the film, "Requiem for a Dream", I was compelled to find this book that Darren Aronofsky, the director, adored so much. He was from Brooklyn, and the Brooklyn that is described here, so it certainly has much more meaning for...more One of the best books I have ever read, hands down. I discovered it at a time where I was aching to find the style that best suited me as a reader, the genre above all others that roped me in and never let go. Selby helped me find it.

After reading the inside of the box for the film, "Requiem for a Dream", I was compelled to find this book that Darren Aronofsky, the director, adored so much. He was from Brooklyn, and the Brooklyn that is described here, so it certainly has much more meaning for him. But after opening it and reading the first sentence, just as with Aronofsky, I was attached at the hip to this book, and have since read it many times over again, although only at times when my stomach and my faith in humanity are sufficiently reinforced enough to handle it.

Wholly depressing almost in its entirety, and yet somehow keenly fascinating, Last Exit to Brooklyn is a forage deep into a dark and ugly world, one where the light of the American dream has never pierced even one tiny ray of its brilliance upon the people within. The characters range from the greedy to the angry to the confused to the misguided to the utterly without hope. Almost all those with a good heart that appear fall victim to the protagonists' everyday stompings on morality.

However, don't be mistaken and think that the novel is without depth. Selby guides those special characters in the story, the ones you never thought you could care about, into your heart, quietly and covertly. He pulls the rug out from underneath you at the most unlikely possible moment, and instead of contempt, you suddenly feel pity, grief, despair, and on occasion (on a very basic level), empathy and understanding.

After more ravaging of your psyche then most minds can handle, just when you are beginning to wonder, "How could human beings end up like this?", one of the novel's most powerful images comes forth. The final section of the multi-layered work (full of characters that rarely intersect) depicts a housing project in Brooklyn, no doubt quite similar to the ones in which the main characters all grew up. Selby writes of children in the opening paragraph, frolicking among the betrodden edifices, pretending to kill each other with guns.

There is something so powerful and potent about the hard-hitting, brutal, grisly, painfully painfully REAL way that Selby writes. It is something that is certainly not for everyone to experience, but something that no one should dare ignore. The review on the back of my copy calls it "a vision of hell so stern it cannot be chuckled or raged aside." I'd say that pretty much hits it right on the head.

Not a read for children, adolescents, or even squeamish or sensitive adults. (less)

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Jun 14, 2011 Lou rated it 3 of 5 stars

Nitty gritty of inner city, a set of stories of individuals in a concrete jungle. In this novel you will not find grand story telling, the writing is lacking punctuation marks and grammar which some readers will find annoying. You will find darkness in mankind, some dysfunctional characters and behaviour, take a look around nowadays and you see theses characters are strife. The novel did not really hook me as it was not one story really leading any where and more just day to day accounts of hust...more

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Nov 27, 2008 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: jazznbeats, gay-lesbian

Gritty, raw prose about New York street life that's in a class by itself. Everyone gets punished in the end, whether it's the drag queen in "The Queen Is Dead" or the slut in "Tralala" or the striking lathe worker who comes out in "Strike". I loved this book but the "punch" line is in New York City you're gonna take a beating for being different.

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Jan 31, 2008 Lane Wilkinson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature, 20th-century

okay, i admit it, i jumped on the Selby Jr. bandwagon along with every other self-described hipster who saw Aronofsky's adaptation of 'Requiem for a Dream'

however, this book is so much more intimate than 'requiem'. granted, the visceral depictions of violence, rape, and drug-abuse can be unsettling and shocking, even today. yet, Selby, Jr. portrays the lives of the destitute with an empathy reminiscent of Nathanael West of Nelson Algren. indeed, any author that can make you really feel for drug...more

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Jan 06, 2008 rinabeana rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

This book was chosen for my book club. It didn't sound like my cup of tea, but I thought I'd give it a try (you can't like ALL the books you read for a book club, can you?). To say I did not enjoy this book would be a vast understatement. I detested the writing style. The dialogue was not separated and quite difficult to follow. This presupposes that I actually wanted to know who was speaking anyway. The subject matter was utterly bereft of anything good. The characters were mean-spirited, lazy,...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Vincent Kaprat rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

There are two books that every wholesome American boy and girl should read: The Grapes of Wrath and The Last Exit to Brooklyn. This is quintessential Americana mixed with broken hearts and broken teeth.

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Sep 03, 2008 Jorge Fecklesson rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was banging back and forth from a rowhouse in Philly to a second floor flat in Jersey City, to an apartment in the Peter Stuyvesant Town of the East Village. This was my context for this book. We were poor, but not starving. We did our best to minimize the impact those aroud us could have.

This might be the most beautifully written novel that I know of at this time. the dialect and characters are astonishing. Too bad it was set where the worst instincts of humankind run rampant through the chao...more

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Jan 19, 2013 Jas rated it 4 of 5 stars

vile in its own right. Departs from the general rules of English some.... , so if you are a stickler, or get caught up in the missing comma, then id pass on this one. Really cruel with its overall themes and dead pan exploration of some pretty horrible shit. Seriously if your stomach generally turns over horrible rape scenes or verbose scenes of murder... Then give this one a pass. I read it in high school and I would not recommended it for anyone below the age of sixteen.

Note, re edited on pho...more

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Aug 09, 2011 Ryan Milbrath added it · review of another edition

The first time I had heard of Hubert Selby Jr. was when I first saw Requiem for a Dream. The movie was very visceral and an intense experience. The impression left by the movie encouraged me to seek out the author of the book and read some of his material. I had heard only good things about Requiem for a Dream the novel, and very good things about his debut, Last Exit to Brooklyn. Curious what Selby would document about working to lower class culture in the 1950s I picked up his debut. In six sh...more

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Jan 27, 2013 Kirstie rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like to read about depravity

Ok so...this book makes Raymond Carver look like a stand up comedian next to Hubert Selby Jr. It is grueling. The characters are all a little depraved and desperately flawed. Most of the time, they seem to possess no idea of just how frighteningly misguided they are. The men are all misogynistic sadists whose wives should run before they are raped and murdered with their unattended babies falling off of ledges. The men that do work are despicably lazy. These are the criminals and underworld drug...more Ok so...this book makes Raymond Carver look like a stand up comedian next to Hubert Selby Jr. It is grueling. The characters are all a little depraved and desperately flawed. Most of the time, they seem to possess no idea of just how frighteningly misguided they are. The men are all misogynistic sadists whose wives should run before they are raped and murdered with their unattended babies falling off of ledges. The men that do work are despicably lazy. These are the criminals and underworld druggies, wifebeaters, and transvestites that existed long before Brooklyn became the trendy indie rock scene it is today. This is the life in the projects and it seems quite real and graphic. The rage these characters feel is like glimpsing into the mind of a sociopath.

This book was banned for a time and tried for obscenity in British courts when it was initially sought to be published there (Selby is a NYer). It was the inspiration for Trainspotting (a novel I found far more complex politically and therefore more worthwhile) and the baseness of the characters definitely makes the two novels touch upon similar issues and levels. Much as Irvine Welsh does (and there is a forward from him in my copy of this book), Hubert Selby Jr. writes in the vernacular of the working-poor class characters so you can vividly sense their stream of consciousness and dialogue. You can actually hear them pretty easily as one does with Welsh's Trainspotting characters.

However, where Welsh succeeds, Selby seems to fail. Welsh presents a dose of realism but he also ties this in with politics in a way that looks at religion and history of Scotland vs. Ireland vs. England. This makes Trainspotting far more complex and successful on other levels. Selby shows a glimpse into a cruel world, which also becomes a document for a time when Brooklyn wasn't regentrified as well as when racism and homophobia was much more rampant. It wasn't a time in American history one can feel particularly proud of and I can't help but feel relieved I wasn't born during this time into a Brooklyn project because I doubt I'd really survive that (especially with any of these male characters as fathers).

But the problem I have with this novel is that I don't really get a deeper message from it. There aren't any solutions offered here and I just ended up feeling really depressed and angry. I'm not really one of those people that just wants to read happy books all the time. I like an intellectual challenge but I already know there are psychopaths in the world. I know there are men who beat their wives and children and even molest children. I am well aware that evil exists and that it's not exactly a new phenomenon, which leads me to wonder why I should rate this book any higher. I will say I thought the author's story was interesting-that he decided to become a writer after being diagnosed with a lung disease and given a poor prognosis (he outlived anyone's expectations). I also found it interesting that he studied or was mentored by Gil Sorrentino but I have to say that I found his afterward a little irritating...his assumption that he'd contributed and left the world something makes an assumption I'm not sure I'd agree with myself. But I'm sure if aliens were to find this novel as the only item left to explain the human race, they wouldn't regret destroying our planet for a second. (less)

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Nov 01, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

I suppose that there is some relationship between this book and the last one I read, "A Place in Time: Twenty Stories of the Port William Membership" by Wendell Berry. That book was written by a Kentucky author; this one by an author whose father was a Kentuckian.

It is tempting to say that "Last Exit to Brooklyn" by Cubby Selby is a book about people struggling to find meaning in life, while Berry's book is about people simply trying to make a life for themselves. Selby's book is about drug add...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Justin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 10-best-books-read-in-2012

For a book banned in England as obscene in the 1960s, one would think Last Exit to Brooklyn would have been more arresting. That's not to say it lacked in its exploration of the dark side of humanity – there was plenty of violence, sex, poverty, and even a slow decent into pedophilia – but in some ways it was hard to see what all the fuss was about. In truth though, I guess that ultimately says more about where society has gone in the last 50 years than the book itself.

As for the book, it was...more

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Aug 10, 2012 Scott rated it 3 of 5 stars

I’ve been looking at the hashtag “#summerreading” on instagram to get some ideas for books to put on my list. I saw this and checked out the Wikipedia summery and it sounded interesting. First of all, I’m not interested in the censorship of books. That said, this book probably needs an NC-17 rating of some kind. After reading the first short episode I pretty much fell out of my chair when I saw that it was first printed in 1964. Words like “graphic” and “gritty” do little justice to properly des...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Fulani Fulani rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is really a series of novellas, not a novel. It was written by someone who didn't know how much time he had left, due to illness (though it turned out he lived a couple more decades); who didn't know how to write and worked it out as he went along (which may explain the immediacy and vividness of the descriptions); and who didn't know what to write about, other than the kinds of people living around him in a Brooklyn slum - whores, pimps, cross-dressers and small-time thugs - and what they...more

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Feb 19, 2012 Daniel rated it 5 of 5 stars

A very important work; perhaps more important than people would now realise. At the time of its publication it was challenged as an obscene work, and for a while it lost the battle. As with 'A Clockwork Orange', 'Straw Dogs', 'American Psycho' and many other works I could name, this book was only challenged because of the mirror it held up. It is a stark and unforgiving examination of a time and a subculture of society Hubert Selby knew only too well. Post-war America. Yes pretty much everybody...more

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Aug 14, 2011 Steph Sutherland rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating depiction of the life of the every-day masses in post-war America.

The book consists of numerous independent, but often inter-connected, portrayals of life within Brooklyn in the years following from the end of WWII. Rather than sticking with the traditional "stars and stripes" uber-patriotic view of this era, the author actively tackles the darker social issues affecting many including drug use, prostitution, domestic abuse and alcoholism.

The author's change of writing style (in vo...more

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Jun 09, 2011 Jeruen Dery rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Now, after reading this book, I realized that transgressive fiction is not for me. I read this book after borrowing it from my sister, and all I could think of is when this book would end.

So what is this book about?

This is a book that is divided into six parts, and basically, every part can be read independently. It deals with bizarre and weird characters, mostly stemming from the not so desirable sector of society. This book is about thugs, criminals, homosexual prostitutes, domestic violence,...more Now, after reading this book, I realized that transgressive fiction is not for me. I read this book after borrowing it from my sister, and all I could think of is when this book would end.

So what is this book about?

This is a book that is divided into six parts, and basically, every part can be read independently. It deals with bizarre and weird characters, mostly stemming from the not so desirable sector of society. This book is about thugs, criminals, homosexual prostitutes, domestic violence, gang rape, and so on. Basically, I suppose Selby has taken the part of society that I am most distant from, and made a book out of it.

Now, I am not opposed to reading about the lives and activities of other sectors of society. However, they should have a point. There should have a purpose as to why I am reading this. However, this book didn't seem to have that. Every chapter didn't seem to have a plot: the chapter about Tralala for example is just about the life of a prostitute who takes money from drunk sailors and she gets gang-raped at the very end. The last chapter, Landsend, is just about the strange lives of the people who live in the public housing, known as projects. Is there a larger plot? Not really.

I was hoping that this was like Requiem for a Dream which is a story about drug addicts and their tragic and pathetic lives. I didn't read the novel, I just watched the movie, and when I learned that this is the same author who wrote that, I was a little excited, but reading this made me wonder what exactly is the point.

Is that what transgressive fiction is about? Is that all about shock value? I get the feeling that the main point of the author is just to shock me with the graphic and profane prose that this book used. While Requiem had a concrete story line, I couldn't see the story line in this book. For me, it was just a never-ending tirade of bad things.

So, would I recommend this one? No. Do I regret reading this one? Kinda, yes. I guess this would make me stay away from transgressive fiction for the time being. I read Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs before, and that was weird. If all transgressive fiction was like this, then I probably would not read it.

1.5 out of 5 stars.(less)

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Dec 17, 2009 Unbridled rated it 4 of 5 stars

A blur of pain, violence, bile, excrement, blood, booze, sperm, nausea, and loathing - in mid (20th) century Brooklyn, before everything debased and original in America became commonplace and boring. And did I mention power? There is power there - lurid, rotten, roiling power. I couldn't place his voice - an American Celine? No, Celine is bitterly funny - maybe an American Genet? He invokes Genet and he is sordid enough - but no, in the end, what comes to mind (bear with me) is Sherwood Anderson...more

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Sep 10, 2009 Andre rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I started reading this book and instantly thought that it read like a Tarantino film. Little did I know that Selby also wrote "Requiem for a Dream" - one of my favorite movies ever (if not one of the most depressing movies that I've ever seen in my life). I find a lot of similarities between Tarantino films and Requiem...

You know, this book ain't no picnic, bitch! (Yes, that was a Malibu's Most Wanted reference.) I swear there's a stretch of at least three pages where there are *no* punctuation...more

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Apr 18, 2012 Chris rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads

I can picture this book being read in college literature classes. I am sure that it deserves its place in modern American Literature and I am also sure that this book and Selby have their fans. I won't dispute his genius. My rating is not based on the "merit" of the book, but on whether I liked it and the truth is that I found this book to be repulsive and nauseating. I think that I was expecting it to be sort of like Kennedy's Iron Weed (which I liked) but much darker but Last Exit isn't dark--...more

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Sep 18, 2009 Nate D rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Irvine Welsh readers

Recommended to Nate D by: Maya, indirrectly by leaving it in the living room

Shelves: postwar-re-de-constructions

I'd previously thought that recent authors chronicling amoral and desperate lives in blunt direct terms (say, Bret Easton Ellis and Irvine Welsh) owed a lot to Bukowski in particular. But Last Exit to Brooklyn both predates Bukowski's first novel and points most directly ahead to the likes of Trainspotting. Except this is more obliteratingly bitter, more deathly demoralizing. Selby's vision is positively apocalyptic, but only in the most frighteningly believable terms.

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About Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby, Jr. was born in Brooklyn and went to sea as a merchant marine while still in his teens. Laid low by lung disease, he was, after a decade of hospitalizations, written off as a goner and sent home to die. Deciding instead to live, but having no way to make a living, he came to a realization that would change the course of literature: "I knew the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer." Dr...more

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Quotes from Last Exit To Brooklyn

“Sometimes we have the absolute certainty there's something inside us that's so hideous and monstrous that if we ever search it out we won't be able to stand looking at it. But it's when we're willing to come face to face with that demon that we face the angel.” — 80 people liked it

“... I started to die 36 hours before I was born, so dying was a way of life for me.” — 20 people liked it

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