Last Exit to Brooklyn
by Hubert Selby Jr.
|
|
Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of Last Exit to Brooklyn.
discuss this book
friend reviews (0)
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.
lists with this book
This book is not in any lists. Go add it to a list.
other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1162)
recommends it for:
nausea swim team
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
Like this review?
yes
(2 people liked it)
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
Last Exit to Brooklyn is one of those infamous books that caused an uproar when it was first published and is now kept in print for its historical merits.
Curious about the book, I got a copy through BookCrossing about 2 years ago and I have finally gotten around to reading it. While it's classified as a novel, it's really more accurately six short stories tied together by location and characters. The stories are all written in free flowing dialect that ignores conventional spelling and gramm...more
Curious about the book, I got a copy through BookCrossing about 2 years ago and I have finally gotten around to reading it. While it's classified as a novel, it's really more accurately six short stories tied together by location and characters. The stories are all written in free flowing dialect that ignores conventional spelling and gramm...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in August, 2007
I first experienced Hubert Selby Jr. when I read Requiem For A Dream on a 36 hour bus ride from Savannah to Kansas City. His knack for writing hopeless, bleak characters seemed to fit the landscape, making the book a perfect complement to an absolutely miserable trip.
Like Requiem For A Dream, Last Exit To Brooklyn is not cheery reading, but it feels important. In a time in which fantasy novels are so popular, it's refreshing to read something so brutally down to earth: the world isn't all su...more
Like Requiem For A Dream, Last Exit To Brooklyn is not cheery reading, but it feels important. In a time in which fantasy novels are so popular, it's refreshing to read something so brutally down to earth: the world isn't all su...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2006
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
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Henry Millers Tropic of Cancer will make you want to quit your job, live in squalor and follow your real dreams, Jack Kerouac's On the Road will make you want to buy a junker and travel to South America at top speed just for the hell of it, but Hubert Selby Jr's Last Exit to Brooklyn will just flat out break your heart.
Dont get me wrong, this book has moments of beauty that stand in stark contrast to its brutal imagery, a junkie reading Shakespeare to other junkies by candlelight is one ex...more
Dont get me wrong, this book has moments of beauty that stand in stark contrast to its brutal imagery, a junkie reading Shakespeare to other junkies by candlelight is one ex...more
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Read in January, 2003
recommends it for:
Anyone who like beat generation writers or the movie "Requem for a Dream"
This was the book that the movie (and eventually the book) "Requem for a Dream" was based off of. The era in which this book was written (the 50's) is known for its great achievements as its cohorts were referred to as "The Greatest Generation." "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is NOT about the "Greatest Generation," as it is the only book I know of that talks about the lumpenproletariat of this era.
What I like about this book compared to other beat books was...more
What I like about this book compared to other beat books was...more
Like this review?
yes
4 comments
recommends it for:
Jason
I read this book many years ago and reread it several times in my youth. I am about to read it again. I heard an interview with Richard Price where he calls it one of his great influences. For me as well. this is one of the GREAT AMERICAN Novels Itshould be in the cannon of Lit in every modern lit class and for the life of me I can't figure out why not. It's certainly loaded with the sex and drugs and rock and roll. It is just a magnificent slice of the human pizza! It is was an incrediably emo...more
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
When I bought this book at Barnes & Noble (for shame), the bookseller be-ach said to me that she read it and thought it was a bad, dirty book. Whatever.
She was right and wrong. It is dirty, so beware inheritors of Puritanical mores. Ok, even some of the more liberal-minded members of our society might be shocked. I do think, though, that it is honest, not exagerrated. Spike Lee has said basically the same things about Brooklyn. It is written in a loud, fast, audacious manner, whi...more
She was right and wrong. It is dirty, so beware inheritors of Puritanical mores. Ok, even some of the more liberal-minded members of our society might be shocked. I do think, though, that it is honest, not exagerrated. Spike Lee has said basically the same things about Brooklyn. It is written in a loud, fast, audacious manner, whi...more
Like this review?
yes
1 comments
Read in June, 2007
this book is written in a style that just bulldozes forward without ever letting you breath (which is a good thing). it's pretty awful and gruesome and the characters aren't very likeable...in fact you kinda hate most of them, but in a good way.
it's written in the style of semi-connected short/longer stories. each character seems to have the same problem of thinking of themselves as different than they actually are. they seem to be blind to their personality problems and only see the world a...more
it's written in the style of semi-connected short/longer stories. each character seems to have the same problem of thinking of themselves as different than they actually are. they seem to be blind to their personality problems and only see the world a...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in May, 2005
This time it was Hubert Selby's "Last Exit To Brooklyn" I've heard and read a lot of good things about this book so I had to give it a shot. Besides, being from Brooklyn means you are pretty much obliged to get all excited by the mere mention of the borough.
Well, it's a pretty graphic and dim view of life. It's basically life through the eyes of a few thinly linked Brooklyn dwellers. Addicts, drunks, homophobic homosexuals and cross-dressers make up the dramatis personae. It w...more
Well, it's a pretty graphic and dim view of life. It's basically life through the eyes of a few thinly linked Brooklyn dwellers. Addicts, drunks, homophobic homosexuals and cross-dressers make up the dramatis personae. It w...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2000
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 ...more
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 ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2004
Selby has a writing style that reaches into your guts and punches you in the eye. His characters are vividly revealed in all their weathered layers, and the quick vernacular dialogue he uses pushes his stories along, forcing upon his readers an ominous quickening of the pulse. Last Exit to Brooklyn is among the first of Selby's many great works of fiction, and the author makes no pretense about his age and experience, but simultaneously, his understanding of the dark dimensios of human nature ...more
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
one of my favorite novels ever. actually a collection of short stories about the hard knocks life of brooklyn's underclass in the 50s. heartbreaking and enthralling, selby grabs a hold of your heart, drags it mercilessly through the gutter, then leaves you there devastated and exhausted. though a work of fiction, you know the characters are based on real individuals in the author's life. only minimal punctuation, published in the wake of the beats, won against obscenity charges in the 60s.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2007
recommends it for:
people who dig the dark side
Wow, what a crazy, fucked up (in a good way) book this is. I only give it four stars because the last chapter is not as good as the others and should have been earlier in the book maybe. That small detail aside, this style of writing grabs you by the short hairs and does not let go till the end. Very disturbing and raw, all of the characters are terrible people who mostly meet terrible ends by the hands of other terrible people. Whew. Read it as a bed time story. :-)
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
This novel explores topics that were considered taboo at the time. Topics such as drugs, street violence, & rape. It is a straight forward novel that doesn't hesitate to use profanity to make its point. The main female character, "Tralala" roams the bars to not only get free drinks from sailors but to get them so drunk she rips them off. In the end, she is dealt a horrifying twist of fate by the same sailor types. This novel is heartfelt, painful, graphic and fast moving.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
Tough read - good book
Lately I've been on a non-fiction jag but since I moved to Paris I'm going through all of the books I own but have never read. Now I'm no book critic, but this book is a very tough read. I couldn't identify with any of the characters (thankfully), most of them being morally bankrupt and terribly unlikable. WARNING - not for the light-hearted! That being said, Hubert Selby Jr. is an excellent writer and if you have the gumption you should check it out.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Read in January, 2004
Last Exit to Brooklyn is comprised by a series of vignettes of a Brooklyn neighborhood in the 40s or 50s. This is not the teary sentimentality of Frank Capra, nor is it the technicolored musicals of Hollywood. This stuff is downright bleak. I couldn't doubt for a second that Selby lived amongst the rabble infesting the book. I think that it offers a realist view of what it was like to live in the working class neighborhoods of Mid-century New York.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
hard to follow at first due to the unconventional writing style. the book does an excellent job portraying a rundown community of miserable people - the men drink and abuse their wives, the women beat their kids and relentlessly insult one another, the kids are thugs in training, and everyone is unhappy.
very grim and sometimes very graphic. if you think you can stomach several pages of gang rape, go ahead and read it, otherwise steer clear.
very grim and sometimes very graphic. if you think you can stomach several pages of gang rape, go ahead and read it, otherwise steer clear.
Like this review?
yes
2 comments
Read in January, 2008
wow....
ok, i get it...
the main problem i had with this book is selby made his point on page 3 and everything afterward is horrific redundancy...
i recently wrote that betty smith's version of brooklyn gave off an awful stink, and i must now conclude that i didn't know what the hell i was talking about...
the premiere example of the ordeal novel...
selby was one messed up dude...
ok, i get it...
the main problem i had with this book is selby made his point on page 3 and everything afterward is horrific redundancy...
i recently wrote that betty smith's version of brooklyn gave off an awful stink, and i must now conclude that i didn't know what the hell i was talking about...
the premiere example of the ordeal novel...
selby was one messed up dude...
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
Saw Hubert Selby Jr., speak and got this book signed by him. What an incredible man. A real genius. The book is so powerful, so vivid, and so outrageously dark. But in all of that ulginess one finds a real truth and truth sets us free (cliche, cliche, but so damn true). You pass through hell when you read this book. And you feel lighter on the other side.
Like this review?
yes
add a comment
