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The Demon
Harry White is a man haunted by a satyr's lust and an obsessive need for sin and retribution. The more Harry succeeds -- a good marriage, a good corporate job -- the more desperate he becomes, as a life of petty crime leads to fraud and murder and, eventually, to apocalyptic violence.
Author of the controversial cult classic Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby began as a writer of short fiction. He plunges the reader head-first into the densely realized worlds of his protagonists, in which the details of daily life rub shoulders with obsession and madness. Although fundamentally concerned with morality, Selby's own sense of humility prevents him from preaching. He offers instead a passionate empathy with the ordinary dreams and aspirations of his characters, a brilliant ear for the urban vernacular and for the voices of conscience and self-deceit that torment his characters.
Author of the controversial cult classic Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby began as a writer of short fiction. He plunges the reader head-first into the densely realized worlds of his protagonists, in which the details of daily life rub shoulders with obsession and madness. Although fundamentally concerned with morality, Selby's own sense of humility prevents him from preaching. He offers instead a passionate empathy with the ordinary dreams and aspirations of his characters, a brilliant ear for the urban vernacular and for the voices of conscience and self-deceit that torment his characters.
312 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
135 people are currently reading
7317 people want to read
About the author
Hubert Selby Jr.
36 books2,405 followersHubert 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." Drawing from the soul of his Brooklyn neighborhood, he began writing something called "The Queen Is Dead," which evolved, after six years, into his first novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964), a book that Allen Ginsberg predicted would "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years."
Selby's second novel, The Room (1971), considered by some to be his masterpiece, received, as Selby said, "the greatest reviews I've ever read in my life," then rapidly vanished leaving barely a trace of its existence. Over the years, however, especially in Europe, The Room has come to be recognized as what Selby himself perceives it to be: the most disturbing book ever written, a book that he himself was unable to read again for twenty years after writing it.
"A man obsessed / is a man possessed / by a demon." Thus the defining epigraph of The Demon (1976), a novel that, like The Room, has been better understood and more widely embraced abroad than at home.
If The Room is Selby's own favorite among his books, Requiem for a Dream (1978) contains his favorite opening line: "Harry locked his mother in the closet." It is perhaps the truest and most horrific tale of heroin addiction ever written.
Song of the Silent Snow (1986) brought together fifteen stories whose writing spanned more than twenty years.
Selby continued to write short fiction, screenplays and teleplays at his apartment in West Hollywood. His work appeared in many journals, including Yugen, Black Mountain Review, Evergreen Review, Provincetown Review, Kulchur, New Directions Annual, Swank and Open City. For the last 20 years of his life, Selby taught creative writing as an adjunct professor in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. Selby often wryly noted that The New York Times would not review his books when they were published, but he predicted that they'd print his obituary.
The movie Last Exit to Brooklyn, Directed by Uli Edel, was made in 1989 and his 1978 novel Requiem for a Dream was made into a film that was released in 2000. Selby himself had a small role as a prison guard.
In the 1980s, Selby made the acquaintance of rock singer Henry Rollins, who had long admired Selby's works and publicly championed them. Rollins not only helped broaden Selby's readership, but also arranged recording sessions and reading tours for Selby. Rollins issued original recordings through his own 2.13.61 publications, and distributed Selby's other works.
During the last years of his life, Selby suffered from depression and fits of rage, but was always a caring father and grandfather. The last month of his life Selby spent in and out of the hospital. He died in Highland Park, Los Angeles, California of chronic obstructive pulmonary lung disease. Selby was survived by his wife of 35 years, Suzanne; four children and 11 grandchildren.
Selby's second novel, The Room (1971), considered by some to be his masterpiece, received, as Selby said, "the greatest reviews I've ever read in my life," then rapidly vanished leaving barely a trace of its existence. Over the years, however, especially in Europe, The Room has come to be recognized as what Selby himself perceives it to be: the most disturbing book ever written, a book that he himself was unable to read again for twenty years after writing it.
"A man obsessed / is a man possessed / by a demon." Thus the defining epigraph of The Demon (1976), a novel that, like The Room, has been better understood and more widely embraced abroad than at home.
If The Room is Selby's own favorite among his books, Requiem for a Dream (1978) contains his favorite opening line: "Harry locked his mother in the closet." It is perhaps the truest and most horrific tale of heroin addiction ever written.
Song of the Silent Snow (1986) brought together fifteen stories whose writing spanned more than twenty years.
Selby continued to write short fiction, screenplays and teleplays at his apartment in West Hollywood. His work appeared in many journals, including Yugen, Black Mountain Review, Evergreen Review, Provincetown Review, Kulchur, New Directions Annual, Swank and Open City. For the last 20 years of his life, Selby taught creative writing as an adjunct professor in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California. Selby often wryly noted that The New York Times would not review his books when they were published, but he predicted that they'd print his obituary.
The movie Last Exit to Brooklyn, Directed by Uli Edel, was made in 1989 and his 1978 novel Requiem for a Dream was made into a film that was released in 2000. Selby himself had a small role as a prison guard.
In the 1980s, Selby made the acquaintance of rock singer Henry Rollins, who had long admired Selby's works and publicly championed them. Rollins not only helped broaden Selby's readership, but also arranged recording sessions and reading tours for Selby. Rollins issued original recordings through his own 2.13.61 publications, and distributed Selby's other works.
During the last years of his life, Selby suffered from depression and fits of rage, but was always a caring father and grandfather. The last month of his life Selby spent in and out of the hospital. He died in Highland Park, Los Angeles, California of chronic obstructive pulmonary lung disease. Selby was survived by his wife of 35 years, Suzanne; four children and 11 grandchildren.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 244 reviews
May 2, 2020
This is a sad day for me indeed. Having finished reading The Demon means that, barring a posthumous collection of some kind--given the appearance of certain non-published texts in spoken word collections not an impossibility perhaps--I have read everything written and published by my second favorite author of all-time, Hubert Selby Jr. The Demon came last in my reading simply because it took me a rather long time to find a copy; but find it I did--last summer at Aardvark Books, my favorite second hand bookshop in San Francisco, CA--and I put off reading it until now mostly because of the bittersweet feeling that I knew would come from arriving at the totality of Cubby's fine pages.
Well, personal affections aside, this is Selby's most traditionally plotted, detailed, and therefore realistically-portrayed narrative, and also his most openly Christian text, arriving quite nearly at the parable level. I was a tad surprised and even disappointed at these two features of the novel which otherwise paid off completely in the things that I enjoy most about Selby's work in general, the feeling of one-ness that I feel with the rest of humanity through reading his perspicacious descriptions of human suffering, the great empathy we come to feel for the despicable characters that we otherwise would dismiss and ignore in everyday life, the feeling that I am not alone in all of the mess of being a human being.
The reason that I note the heightened realism and more obviously Christian theme of this particular novel is not because I'm against either technique--my third favorite writer is Dante Alighieri, very Christian, and probably next is Ernest Hemingway, master of modernist literary realism--but because I think that these two elements weaken those strengths that I mentioned above, what usually makes Selby's work so uniquely effective at ripping my guts out and making me want to run out and find, shelter, and bed down with the first homeless leper that I can in order to keep them warm and safe all through the night. Really, at his best, no writer gets under your skin like Selby except perhaps for Steinbeck in Of Mice and Men or The Pearl.
I was just teaching a short narrative by Italian writer Pier Paolo Pasolini the other day called "Rital and Raton" and in this story the narrator/Pasolini himself apparently declares that to morally judge another human being is to create a power structure, is to lord it over your fellow human beings. As a political anarchist with an a priori bias against power itself--I believe that there is only abuse, never a correct use of power--I objected to the overtly Christianizing of Harry's (Yeah, the protagonists of all of Selby's novels and many of his short stories are named Harry, I love that too) sickness in The Demon. Such a rationalization of his problem tended, in my opinion, to let the reader off the hook, to let the smugly saved look down from a higher position at poor suffering evildoer Harry and his obsession with pity--and that nullified, or at least weakened, for me, the radical empathy that I feel for Harry, Tyrone, Sarah, and Marion of Requiem for a Dream or the man stuck in the cell in The Room or Tralala or any of the many other unforgettable characters of Last Exit to Brooklyn.
Perhaps it's just that I prefer the more overt critique of capitalism/materialaism of Last Exit and Requiem to the more pointedly Christian attack on the sin of pride here, for pride, being personal rather than systemic, makes us readers condemn the character rather that the character's weakness in escaping the sick system surrounding them of the other novels. (For, in this anarchist's opinion, institutional pride is the real sin that creates abusive hierarchies of power: i.e. governments, armies, syndicates, banks, bully systems of all kinds.) It is interesting, however, to see Selby writing about a successful business man here--even with the familiar Brooklyn roots--than the usual lower and lower middle-class tortured souls of his other novels and stories.
It occurred to me that this novel was reminiscent of, kind of a modern-day updating of Mathew Lewis' Gothic gem The Monk. Also note that it came about only a year after Blatty's The Exorcist and both novels seem bent on convincing us that evil comes through us from without, from demons. I also just saw P. T. Anderson's recent film The Master and I thought that they shared themes of American alone-ness and the anguish of the search for freedom: to follow no master is to live alone, not to surrender is to become a killer, to lay down with a sandcastle woman, to come to despise others because their physical closeness mocks their actual empathetic distance.
FYI: Requiem for a Dream, The Room, and Last Exit to Brooklyn are all, on a scale of 1-6 stars, eight star novels. Selby's collection of short fiction, Song of the Silent Snow is between 8 and 6, but his last two novels, The Willow Tree and Waiting Period, are, like The Demon a bit weaker. Of them I think I liked The Willow Tree the best although it's still flawed, even overly sentimental. Still, all of Selby's work is so much better than most writers can even dream of being that I recommend them all--but only with your seatbelt fastened for they will take you to places where you do not want to go but you will be better for having gone there and seen those things and wept for those who live there.
Well, personal affections aside, this is Selby's most traditionally plotted, detailed, and therefore realistically-portrayed narrative, and also his most openly Christian text, arriving quite nearly at the parable level. I was a tad surprised and even disappointed at these two features of the novel which otherwise paid off completely in the things that I enjoy most about Selby's work in general, the feeling of one-ness that I feel with the rest of humanity through reading his perspicacious descriptions of human suffering, the great empathy we come to feel for the despicable characters that we otherwise would dismiss and ignore in everyday life, the feeling that I am not alone in all of the mess of being a human being.
The reason that I note the heightened realism and more obviously Christian theme of this particular novel is not because I'm against either technique--my third favorite writer is Dante Alighieri, very Christian, and probably next is Ernest Hemingway, master of modernist literary realism--but because I think that these two elements weaken those strengths that I mentioned above, what usually makes Selby's work so uniquely effective at ripping my guts out and making me want to run out and find, shelter, and bed down with the first homeless leper that I can in order to keep them warm and safe all through the night. Really, at his best, no writer gets under your skin like Selby except perhaps for Steinbeck in Of Mice and Men or The Pearl.
I was just teaching a short narrative by Italian writer Pier Paolo Pasolini the other day called "Rital and Raton" and in this story the narrator/Pasolini himself apparently declares that to morally judge another human being is to create a power structure, is to lord it over your fellow human beings. As a political anarchist with an a priori bias against power itself--I believe that there is only abuse, never a correct use of power--I objected to the overtly Christianizing of Harry's (Yeah, the protagonists of all of Selby's novels and many of his short stories are named Harry, I love that too) sickness in The Demon. Such a rationalization of his problem tended, in my opinion, to let the reader off the hook, to let the smugly saved look down from a higher position at poor suffering evildoer Harry and his obsession with pity--and that nullified, or at least weakened, for me, the radical empathy that I feel for Harry, Tyrone, Sarah, and Marion of Requiem for a Dream or the man stuck in the cell in The Room or Tralala or any of the many other unforgettable characters of Last Exit to Brooklyn.
Perhaps it's just that I prefer the more overt critique of capitalism/materialaism of Last Exit and Requiem to the more pointedly Christian attack on the sin of pride here, for pride, being personal rather than systemic, makes us readers condemn the character rather that the character's weakness in escaping the sick system surrounding them of the other novels. (For, in this anarchist's opinion, institutional pride is the real sin that creates abusive hierarchies of power: i.e. governments, armies, syndicates, banks, bully systems of all kinds.) It is interesting, however, to see Selby writing about a successful business man here--even with the familiar Brooklyn roots--than the usual lower and lower middle-class tortured souls of his other novels and stories.
It occurred to me that this novel was reminiscent of, kind of a modern-day updating of Mathew Lewis' Gothic gem The Monk. Also note that it came about only a year after Blatty's The Exorcist and both novels seem bent on convincing us that evil comes through us from without, from demons. I also just saw P. T. Anderson's recent film The Master and I thought that they shared themes of American alone-ness and the anguish of the search for freedom: to follow no master is to live alone, not to surrender is to become a killer, to lay down with a sandcastle woman, to come to despise others because their physical closeness mocks their actual empathetic distance.
FYI: Requiem for a Dream, The Room, and Last Exit to Brooklyn are all, on a scale of 1-6 stars, eight star novels. Selby's collection of short fiction, Song of the Silent Snow is between 8 and 6, but his last two novels, The Willow Tree and Waiting Period, are, like The Demon a bit weaker. Of them I think I liked The Willow Tree the best although it's still flawed, even overly sentimental. Still, all of Selby's work is so much better than most writers can even dream of being that I recommend them all--but only with your seatbelt fastened for they will take you to places where you do not want to go but you will be better for having gone there and seen those things and wept for those who live there.
August 22, 2025
“All of the people in my novels fail because of lack of control. Not because they are immoral by anybody’s standards, but because they lost control. The lack of power is their dilemma.” - Hubert Selby Jr.
Compared to Requiem For A Dream or Last Exit To Brooklyn, The Demon felt a bit flat for a while, definitely repetitive. Harry does something bad. Harry feels terrible. Harry gets a break. Temporary control. Relapse. Again and again. You start to wonder where it’s going.
But that circularity turned out to be the point. It’s not a flaw, it’s the form. You’re stuck in the spiral with Harry. The cycles start to compress. They get faster, more violent, less redemptive. The intervals between breakdowns collapse. Finally he doesn’t just get worse, he stays worse.
The Demon shares the same territory as those other novels. The urban decay, delusion, self-destruction. But they had more pace and plot. This was more metaphysical. The demon this time isn’t addiction or capitalism. There’s no system crushing Harry. He’s not trapped by class, race, or circumstance. He’s affluent and loved. The demon isn’t a metaphor for trauma or injustice, it’s just him. A primal, inescapable drive. He knows it’s there. He’s not running from external pressures. He’s terrified of himself.
Selby plays it as a moral horror story. A man begging for salvation, knowing he’ll destroy everything anyway. You can’t pity Harry. Nothing is done to him. The horror is what he is, and what he does with full knowledge of himself. And still he suffers, he prays, he begs for help. He tries to change. So there’s tragedy. But no innocence.
It’s a reversal of the usual downfall narrative. Those stories suggest this could happen to anyone. Selby asks: what if some people are just born to destroy themselves and others, no matter how good they have it? Not because of society or because they were failed. But because they are like this. It’s not moralizing, and it’s not deterministic either. It’s worse. It shows a person with full agency choosing hell. And Selby offers no mercy, no grace, no reset button. When you lose control in his universe, you’re just gone.
Compared to Requiem For A Dream or Last Exit To Brooklyn, The Demon felt a bit flat for a while, definitely repetitive. Harry does something bad. Harry feels terrible. Harry gets a break. Temporary control. Relapse. Again and again. You start to wonder where it’s going.
But that circularity turned out to be the point. It’s not a flaw, it’s the form. You’re stuck in the spiral with Harry. The cycles start to compress. They get faster, more violent, less redemptive. The intervals between breakdowns collapse. Finally he doesn’t just get worse, he stays worse.
The Demon shares the same territory as those other novels. The urban decay, delusion, self-destruction. But they had more pace and plot. This was more metaphysical. The demon this time isn’t addiction or capitalism. There’s no system crushing Harry. He’s not trapped by class, race, or circumstance. He’s affluent and loved. The demon isn’t a metaphor for trauma or injustice, it’s just him. A primal, inescapable drive. He knows it’s there. He’s not running from external pressures. He’s terrified of himself.
Selby plays it as a moral horror story. A man begging for salvation, knowing he’ll destroy everything anyway. You can’t pity Harry. Nothing is done to him. The horror is what he is, and what he does with full knowledge of himself. And still he suffers, he prays, he begs for help. He tries to change. So there’s tragedy. But no innocence.
It’s a reversal of the usual downfall narrative. Those stories suggest this could happen to anyone. Selby asks: what if some people are just born to destroy themselves and others, no matter how good they have it? Not because of society or because they were failed. But because they are like this. It’s not moralizing, and it’s not deterministic either. It’s worse. It shows a person with full agency choosing hell. And Selby offers no mercy, no grace, no reset button. When you lose control in his universe, you’re just gone.
November 12, 2012
The seventies were seemingly the most productive decade for Hubert Selby, whose short bibliography shows how torturously he composed his tortured (but never torturous) novels and stories. The Room was published in 1971, followed by The Demon in 1976 and Requiem For a Dream only two years(!) later. With his two masterpieces behind him—Requiem and Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964)—Selby’s work was extremely sporadic and, apparently, subpar. Publication dates suggest this novel occupied him for half a decade, despite Requiem being the superior work, but it’s by no means a patchy effort. The Demon is a “psychological drama” (as TV schedulers say) following the progress of sex-addicted Harry from his womanising years, his attempt to shimmy up the (unconvincing) corporate ladder, to his slow transformation into a serial killer. The prose is typically simple, using Selby’s familiar punctuation style and exhausting run-on sentences. He spends a little too long on the build-up for the climax to have the same devastating wrecking-ball-in-the-guts feeling as his two masterpieces. Arguably, Selby’s depiction of home life is far too cardboard to be wholly satisfying here. His strength as a writer was a profound understanding of what drives people to extremes and the tormented tangles we get ourselves into. (It is hinted that Harry could ‘free’ his demon by simply confessing all his nefarious acts—hmm, probably not, eh Hube?)
January 27, 2024
There is dark, there is really dark, and then there is Selby's The Demon. This is a journey down the rabbit hole of one Harry White, who starts the novel working in some corporation in NYC while living with his parents in Brooklyn. Harry is something of a ladies man-- his friends call him 'Harry the Lover'-- but he only seduces married women. For him, it is something of a game, and a game he is quite good at. Really, however, Harry's seductions are an attempt to scratch an itch that just will not go away and gradually morph into things more sinister...
Selby's experimental prose takes a bit to get used to but I really started to enjoy it as the novel unfolded; he eschews 'minor' things like quotes on spoken dialogue and a range of other punctuation:
Harry loves his job but oh so often finds it hard to concentrate, thinking about women. He starts taking long lunches, often seducing women for a quickie, and his boss is not pleased. Finally, Harry starts dating a lovely gal who works at the same firm, but she tells him in no subtle terms that a ring will come before sex. Well, the ladies man seems to come to heal, but that itch keeps coming back...
The Demon reminded me of Taxi Driver as we follow someone's descent into madness. One could, I suppose, liken this to a metaphor of modern existence, where Harry gets all the 'good things' in life, or what are supposed to be good things-- huge house, wife, kids, meals at fancy restaurants, etc.-- but crass materialism in the end really does not satisfy. Yet, this does not really represent the itch Harry cannot scratch; he had that before he became wealthy, and it only intensifies as he ages. Selby portrays Harry in a very sympathetic light; he really wants to stop doing what he does to 'quell the demon', but just cannot. 4 Dark Stars!!
Selby's experimental prose takes a bit to get used to but I really started to enjoy it as the novel unfolded; he eschews 'minor' things like quotes on spoken dialogue and a range of other punctuation:
Steve smiled at Harry and patted him on the back. I aint bitchin. I understand, Harry. A stiff dick aint got no conscience, right?--laughing--any port in a storm. But you know your trouble? Taking his hand off Harrys shoulder. Your trouble is you aint go no loyalty
Harry loves his job but oh so often finds it hard to concentrate, thinking about women. He starts taking long lunches, often seducing women for a quickie, and his boss is not pleased. Finally, Harry starts dating a lovely gal who works at the same firm, but she tells him in no subtle terms that a ring will come before sex. Well, the ladies man seems to come to heal, but that itch keeps coming back...
The Demon reminded me of Taxi Driver as we follow someone's descent into madness. One could, I suppose, liken this to a metaphor of modern existence, where Harry gets all the 'good things' in life, or what are supposed to be good things-- huge house, wife, kids, meals at fancy restaurants, etc.-- but crass materialism in the end really does not satisfy. Yet, this does not really represent the itch Harry cannot scratch; he had that before he became wealthy, and it only intensifies as he ages. Selby portrays Harry in a very sympathetic light; he really wants to stop doing what he does to 'quell the demon', but just cannot. 4 Dark Stars!!
January 21, 2010
The first 3/4 of this book is about a man addicted to sex. He's successful, rich and has a beautiful wife and 2 kids but everything is falling apart because he can't keep his dick in his pants when it comes to other women. Sound familiar so far, Tiger?
Eventually though, having one night stands doesn't provide enough excitement for him so he moves on to stealing things just for the hell of it.Then even that begins to pale, so he turns to the ultimate thrill...murder.
Selby does a good job of keeping a relatively simple plot interesting for 312 pages.If you want to read something different and aren't too prudish, you should give this a try.
Eventually though, having one night stands doesn't provide enough excitement for him so he moves on to stealing things just for the hell of it.Then even that begins to pale, so he turns to the ultimate thrill...murder.
Selby does a good job of keeping a relatively simple plot interesting for 312 pages.If you want to read something different and aren't too prudish, you should give this a try.
August 19, 2019
Behind me theres a house, a beautiful house with a loving family, and my gut is filled with rats and maggots that are chewing me up alive.
I feel like the aim of this book wasn’t just to shock, but also as a reminder that wealth, sex, admiration and success don’t necessarily lead to a happy life.
I found, to begin with, this was so great at flowing along with the story. There were no sections that seemed overly long and boring, it was just exactly what we needed to know about Harry’s life. Then we came to after Harry’s marriage, where the demons within him couldn’t be kept down and he was frequently going out and sleeping with random women. Now, I was expecting this to happen in this book, Harry’s known as “Harry the Lover” so it’s pretty obvious that he’s going to be addicted to sex, but it went on for too long. It felt like half the novel was about Harry going out and shagging anything that moved, all the while, his lovely wife was at home looking after their son, and she had no idea what Harry was up to. The thought of my boyfriend / husband cheating on me one of the worst things I can imagine, so having to read so much of it had me seriously wanting to put the book down and move on.
Thank God Harry moves on to other things to fulfill his desires, because it definitely helped me get back into reading this. Once I was back into reading this, I was really hooked with the story. I kept wondering how far Harry was going to go to hold down his madness.
People get annoyed with the way Selby Jr writes his novels, but I think it’s cool. He doesn’t use speech marks, paragraphs and sentences ramble for ages and he uses a forward slash instead of a apostrophe (it’s closer to type than the apostrophe), this way, he doesn’t ruin his idea and writing flow. I like this raw style of writing, though it can sometimes get confusing to understand who is speaking. Selby Jr is also known for writing about some quite strange, manic and disturbed characters, so his rushed, and a little hectic, writing style does an amazing job as getting you inside the mind of the narrator.
This so could have been a 5 star read for me, but I read it during a reading slump (one that I’m kind of still in), plus the topic of infidelity cropped up too much that everything just fell apart and I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I had wanted to. This is definitely not an easy read but also not a read you should pass up if you get your hands on it.
I feel like the aim of this book wasn’t just to shock, but also as a reminder that wealth, sex, admiration and success don’t necessarily lead to a happy life.
I found, to begin with, this was so great at flowing along with the story. There were no sections that seemed overly long and boring, it was just exactly what we needed to know about Harry’s life. Then we came to after Harry’s marriage, where the demons within him couldn’t be kept down and he was frequently going out and sleeping with random women. Now, I was expecting this to happen in this book, Harry’s known as “Harry the Lover” so it’s pretty obvious that he’s going to be addicted to sex, but it went on for too long. It felt like half the novel was about Harry going out and shagging anything that moved, all the while, his lovely wife was at home looking after their son, and she had no idea what Harry was up to. The thought of my boyfriend / husband cheating on me one of the worst things I can imagine, so having to read so much of it had me seriously wanting to put the book down and move on.
Thank God Harry moves on to other things to fulfill his desires, because it definitely helped me get back into reading this. Once I was back into reading this, I was really hooked with the story. I kept wondering how far Harry was going to go to hold down his madness.
People get annoyed with the way Selby Jr writes his novels, but I think it’s cool. He doesn’t use speech marks, paragraphs and sentences ramble for ages and he uses a forward slash instead of a apostrophe (it’s closer to type than the apostrophe), this way, he doesn’t ruin his idea and writing flow. I like this raw style of writing, though it can sometimes get confusing to understand who is speaking. Selby Jr is also known for writing about some quite strange, manic and disturbed characters, so his rushed, and a little hectic, writing style does an amazing job as getting you inside the mind of the narrator.
This so could have been a 5 star read for me, but I read it during a reading slump (one that I’m kind of still in), plus the topic of infidelity cropped up too much that everything just fell apart and I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I had wanted to. This is definitely not an easy read but also not a read you should pass up if you get your hands on it.
April 7, 2017
Hubert Selby Jr. now holds a very special place in my heart; be it a black, dirty place in my heart dripping in blood and other unmentionable secretions that craves stories about seemingly normal people that slowly descend into their own personal hell. Along with the sickly addicting subjects, Selby's writing style is something of it's own. After reading for an extended period of time, you start to feel like you are on some sort of crazy ride that is impossible to jump off of. I finally realized that this "driving" sort of feel to the book is supplied by Selby's lack of punctuation like periods. He is definitely a great American author!
February 14, 2018
This is Selby at his best. An outstanding book. An obsessive, powerful one. In which the main character defies himself, constantly, in a sort of permanent bet. Would say is the story of an ordinary, common man, easy to identify with. Till he starts, step after another, becoming something very different. But it all happens as if playing with himself. A quite weird play. That is going to drive him during the whole book. As if he were all of a sudden, lead by some obscure and playful demon. One can share his oddities as a sort of adrenaline shots, of heavier dose each time. No doubt Harry loves risk. Selby's trick is to make us share it. So we see Harry is changing into someone else. Even if he does not really want to. He may not want to do what he is going to. But there is some leading force that dominates him. The risk that it implies, would say. Somehow, he develops a sort of second nature. So, now he has a double life, too. As in paradox, his private one remains a common and good life. Each time even better, as worst becomes his hidden one. He ascends in his professional office life, he marries. And keeps being, apparently, a normal man. But when this happens, he is in reality, something else. Harry has entered in another, cruel, dark, world. Nobody knows who he really is. He does but can not tell. Can not share then, the takeover his inner demon has worked out on him. He has a "man within". And you are already caught in his nightmare.
Do not want to reveal the plot, so will leave this here. Take it as a bad joke. Or not a joke at all, as you wish. With a quite unexpected, though logical, ending.
Different to his first novel, the hard to read "Last Exit to Brooklyn" with its choir of raw characters and ambience. And far away also from his more experimentally written "Requiem for a Dream", this one maybe his best work. Do we have to say there are no drugs here? . No need of, neither. Will say it has the same, or more catching beat Dostoiesky shown in his novel "The Gambler", e.g. Same kind of evolving, dominant obsession, too. Both authors having been mentioned as owners of a careless style writers, the two of them anyway master what they do. And any comparison to Brett Easton Ellis is, totally out of place, here. For "Psycho" is, in my humble opinion, the book not to be read, of that author. And this one, is an unforgettable work. Also, for other reasons not to be mentioned, Selby has nothing to see with Easton Ellis. Nor with any other, would I say. Hubert Selby Jr. stands alone as the brilliant outsider but classic he already is. And so he shall remain. Do not dare to bet against.
Do not want to reveal the plot, so will leave this here. Take it as a bad joke. Or not a joke at all, as you wish. With a quite unexpected, though logical, ending.
Different to his first novel, the hard to read "Last Exit to Brooklyn" with its choir of raw characters and ambience. And far away also from his more experimentally written "Requiem for a Dream", this one maybe his best work. Do we have to say there are no drugs here? . No need of, neither. Will say it has the same, or more catching beat Dostoiesky shown in his novel "The Gambler", e.g. Same kind of evolving, dominant obsession, too. Both authors having been mentioned as owners of a careless style writers, the two of them anyway master what they do. And any comparison to Brett Easton Ellis is, totally out of place, here. For "Psycho" is, in my humble opinion, the book not to be read, of that author. And this one, is an unforgettable work. Also, for other reasons not to be mentioned, Selby has nothing to see with Easton Ellis. Nor with any other, would I say. Hubert Selby Jr. stands alone as the brilliant outsider but classic he already is. And so he shall remain. Do not dare to bet against.
January 25, 2015
A bit of John Updike and a bit of John Cheever but The Demon is much more morbid and moribund. And it is written in an unimaginative language of an office clerk – Hubert Selby Jr. describes equally routinely both work and love affairs.
“Then the morning and the goddamn feelings of guilt and remorse that churn your swearing body and dull your mind without ever really identifying themselves, the feelings being pushed and shoved desperately down into the cesspool of the gut so they can become confused and absorbed by something else, anything else, so they do not have to be looked at and recognized and accepted for what they really are.”
Somehow I didn’t believe in all those main hero’s sinister psychological metamorphoses at all and The Demon seemed to me to be no more exciting than an amateurish snapshot in a family album.
“…and even the ducks in the lake seem to be aware of the solemnity of the occasion…”
Really?
“Then the morning and the goddamn feelings of guilt and remorse that churn your swearing body and dull your mind without ever really identifying themselves, the feelings being pushed and shoved desperately down into the cesspool of the gut so they can become confused and absorbed by something else, anything else, so they do not have to be looked at and recognized and accepted for what they really are.”
Somehow I didn’t believe in all those main hero’s sinister psychological metamorphoses at all and The Demon seemed to me to be no more exciting than an amateurish snapshot in a family album.
“…and even the ducks in the lake seem to be aware of the solemnity of the occasion…”
Really?
March 16, 2018
(I did this for you Reckoner)
Απλή σημείωση και όχι κριτική:
Δεν μπορώ να πω, όπως μερικοί αναγνώστες, ότι το The Demon είναι καλύτερο απ'το American Psycho. Καταλαβαίνω τον παραλληλισμό (και τα δύο βιβλία ανήκουν στο αγαπημένο μου είδος λογοτεχνίας, είναι transgressive.
-Και οι δύο συγγραφείς επιτίθενται στα θεμέλια της αμερικανικής κοινωνίας σατιρίζοντας την σαπίλα της και κατ'επέκταση στον καπιταλισμό. Η γραφή τους δεν ακολουθεί κανόνες.
-Και οι δύο ήρωες είναι ανταγωνιστικοί και ανίκανοι να νιώσουν συμπάθεια ή αγάπη. Το γυναικείο φύλο είναι μόνο στήθη και πισινοί, η κοινωνική τους θέση δεν τους κάνει ύποπτους για φόνο κτλ).
Η σύγκριση όμως The Demon-American Psycho: 1-0 είναι λίγο άδικη. Υπάρχουν ομοιότητες αλλά οι διαφορές είναι πιο χτυπητές. Η πιο σημαντική για μένα είναι ότι ο Χάρι νιώθει αηδία για τον εαυτό του. Η απελπισία του είναι τόσο έντονη που μπορείς να την πιάσεις. Κάνει άπειρες προσπάθειες να βρει έξοδο απ'τον λαβύρινθο και δεν μπορεί. Ο Πάτρικ, όχι μόνο δεν κάνει προσπάθειες να βγει απ'τον λαβύρινθο (έξυπνο αγόρι, έβλεπε μπροστά. Ήξερε ότι δεν υπάρχει "έξοδος") αλλά κάνει μετατόπιση του προβλήματος στους άλλους. Νιώθει αηδία μόνο για όσους τον περιτριγυρίζουν. Για να μην πω ότι ο ένας είναι ο υπάλληλος της δεκαετίας ενώ ο άλλος σιχαίνεται την δουλειά του.
Άρα, όχι. Ο Χάρι Γουάιτ δεν είναι ο μεγάλος αδελφός του Πάτρικ Μπέιτμαν. Ο Χάρι έζησε στην ίδια υλιστική κοινωνία με τον Πάτρικ. Μία κοινωνία που “All it comes down to is this: I feel like shit, but look great.” .
Σε μία κοινωνία που οι άνθρωποι ψάχνουν την ευτυχία γύρω τους και όχι μέσα τους. Ίσως γιατί φοβούνται. Δεν είναι λίγο να αντικρύσεις το κενό, ή ακόμη χειρότερα, να βρεις μέσα σου σκουλήκια.
Το The Demon γράφτηκε το 1976.
Το American psycho το 1991.
Έχουμε 2017 και τα πράγματα έχουν αλλάξει μόνο προς το χειρότερο.
Χμμ... Αν η κριτική μου δεν μαζέψει πάνω από 20 λάικ, λες να αρχίσω να κατεβάζω ζάναξ σαν κάσιους;
------------------------------------------------
Θα ακολουθήσουν σημειώσεις για το βιβλίο όταν δεν θα βαριέμαι.
Μακάριος ἀνὴρ ὃς ὑπομένει πειρασμόν· ὅτι δόκιμος γενόμενος λήψεται τὸν στέφανον τῆς ζωῆς, ὃν ἐπηγγείλατο ὁ Κύριος τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτόν.
μηδεὶς πειραζόμενος λεγέτω ὅτι ἀπὸ Θεοῦ πειράζομαι· ὁ γὰρ Θεὸς ἀπείραστός ἐστι κακῶν, πειράζει δὲ αὐτὸς οὐδένα.
ἕκαστος δὲ πειράζεται ὑπὸ τῆς ἰδίας ἐπιθυμίας ἐξελκόμενος καὶ δελεαζόμενος·
εἶτα ἡ ἐπιθυμία συλλαβοῦσα τίκτει ἁμαρτίαν, ἡ δὲ ἁμαρτία ἀποτελεσθεῖσα ἀποκύει θάνατον.
Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.
Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man;
But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
A man obssessed
is a man possessed
by a demon
***
Απλή σημείωση και όχι κριτική:
Δεν μπορώ να πω, όπως μερικοί αναγνώστες, ότι το The Demon είναι καλύτερο απ'το American Psycho. Καταλαβαίνω τον παραλληλισμό (και τα δύο βιβλία ανήκουν στο αγαπημένο μου είδος λογοτεχνίας, είναι transgressive.
-Και οι δύο συγγραφείς επιτίθενται στα θεμέλια της αμερικανικής κοινωνίας σατιρίζοντας την σαπίλα της και κατ'επέκταση στον καπιταλισμό. Η γραφή τους δεν ακολουθεί κανόνες.
-Και οι δύο ήρωες είναι ανταγωνιστικοί και ανίκανοι να νιώσουν συμπάθεια ή αγάπη. Το γυναικείο φύλο είναι μόνο στήθη και πισινοί, η κοινωνική τους θέση δεν τους κάνει ύποπτους για φόνο κτλ).
Η σύγκριση όμως The Demon-American Psycho: 1-0 είναι λίγο άδικη. Υπάρχουν ομοιότητες αλλά οι διαφορές είναι πιο χτυπητές. Η πιο σημαντική για μένα είναι ότι ο Χάρι νιώθει αηδία για τον εαυτό του. Η απελπισία του είναι τόσο έντονη που μπορείς να την πιάσεις. Κάνει άπειρες προσπάθειες να βρει έξοδο απ'τον λαβύρινθο και δεν μπορεί. Ο Πάτρικ, όχι μόνο δεν κάνει προσπάθειες να βγει απ'τον λαβύρινθο (έξυπνο αγόρι, έβλεπε μπροστά. Ήξερε ότι δεν υπάρχει "έξοδος") αλλά κάνει μετατόπιση του προβλήματος στους άλλους. Νιώθει αηδία μόνο για όσους τον περιτριγυρίζουν. Για να μην πω ότι ο ένας είναι ο υπάλληλος της δεκαετίας ενώ ο άλλος σιχαίνεται την δουλειά του.
Άρα, όχι. Ο Χάρι Γουάιτ δεν είναι ο μεγάλος αδελφός του Πάτρικ Μπέιτμαν. Ο Χάρι έζησε στην ίδια υλιστική κοινωνία με τον Πάτρικ. Μία κοινωνία που “All it comes down to is this: I feel like shit, but look great.” .
Σε μία κοινωνία που οι άνθρωποι ψάχνουν την ευτυχία γύρω τους και όχι μέσα τους. Ίσως γιατί φοβούνται. Δεν είναι λίγο να αντικρύσεις το κενό, ή ακόμη χειρότερα, να βρεις μέσα σου σκουλήκια.
Το The Demon γράφτηκε το 1976.
Το American psycho το 1991.
Έχουμε 2017 και τα πράγματα έχουν αλλάξει μόνο προς το χειρότερο.
Χμμ... Αν η κριτική μου δεν μαζέψει πάνω από 20 λάικ, λες να αρχίσω να κατεβάζω ζάναξ σαν κάσιους;
------------------------------------------------
Θα ακολουθήσουν σημειώσεις για το βιβλίο όταν δεν θα βαριέμαι.
January 30, 2016
The Demon by Hubert Selby Jr came along more than 25 years ahead of American Psycho and I wonder if it was an inspiration for Ellis's novel. We have a similar set up, that is a rising young executive with a high paying "job" (it's never made clear what he does at work) who spends many of his hours nurturing depraved obsessions. Ellis's novel took things to the extreme, while in The Demon, our hero Harry dives into his psychosis with a methodical, deliberate approach.
We first meet Harry as an arrogant young man with a promising future, and a yen for married women. When they're married, you see, you get none of the commitments, no virginal hangups, no baggage that gets in the way of a young stud having a good time. You score and move on. No tearful goodbyes or messy breakups. You hit it and quit it, and Harry is a master at this game of hunt and conquest. Harry works in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn with his parents. Between his job, his commute and his home turf there is no shortage of young married women whom Harry can work his charms on. Finding a broad without cashing in on his freedom is Harry's chief goal in life. But, if you've ever read anything by Hubert Selby before, you know that shit is going to go south for our Harry in a bad and ugly way. No one survives Selby's world unscathed.
We first meet Harry as an arrogant young man with a promising future, and a yen for married women. When they're married, you see, you get none of the commitments, no virginal hangups, no baggage that gets in the way of a young stud having a good time. You score and move on. No tearful goodbyes or messy breakups. You hit it and quit it, and Harry is a master at this game of hunt and conquest. Harry works in Manhattan and lives in Brooklyn with his parents. Between his job, his commute and his home turf there is no shortage of young married women whom Harry can work his charms on. Finding a broad without cashing in on his freedom is Harry's chief goal in life. But, if you've ever read anything by Hubert Selby before, you know that shit is going to go south for our Harry in a bad and ugly way. No one survives Selby's world unscathed.
February 1, 2024
Typically, each chapter starts with achievement, mirth, and saccharine and ends with frustration and anxiety. You get to be in Harry's head as he spits bile: "Jesus, I/d like to see the orangutan hes married to. Can just see them sitting around watching the boob tube, picking nits off each other and eating them." The extended internal ranting reminded me of Notes from the Underground. But I didn't much like the disease progression. Harry becomes a successful executive, a family-man, and an unbearable cry-baby.
This is not horror. Whoever classified this as horror must have been traumatized by Selby's previous book The Room.
This is not horror. Whoever classified this as horror must have been traumatized by Selby's previous book The Room.
February 16, 2010
Just finished quite a disturbing story of crime and self-punishment. Harry White's tragedy seems to have been inspired by St. Augustine equation of sin with sex. In the beginning, Harry's discreet affairs with random married women feel a bit funny. You wonder what will occur to this man "haunted by a satyr's lust". Then you see Harry getting married and on the fast track to a well-paid corporate job. Yet his obsessiive need for sin and retribution leads him to petty crimes, then to murder and eventually to spectacular violence. I wonder, is the moral of the story about the dangers of lust? If it is so, how Catholic is that? I don't think it's an accident that the ultimate outburst of violence is directed at an authority of the Roman Catholic church. I am impressed by Hubert Selby Jr.'s narrative and style. If his writing could be translated to music it would sound as a monumental piece of jazz-rock.
January 26, 2010
Hubert Selby Jr does it again, taking us on a journey from the depths of humanity into the bosom of hell. This time sex addiction is man's poison and it ain't pretty. I needed to take a few showers after this fable. Man's fall never felt so disgusting and heartfelt at the same time. Selby is not pretty, but he sure is honest. Read it... then become Catholic.
March 16, 2020
I discovered this title from Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks From Hell. It’s not much of a horror but I did enjoy picking it up every night to see where it was heading and found it to be a dark and disturbing story. There was a point in which Harry’s shallow, misogynist view became a bit too much but the timely introduction of Linda’s perspective served to counteract the harsh, masculine one of Harry’s. It could be almost too heavy and intense but it did convey a feeling of hopelessness and compulsion quite effectively.
October 7, 2024
The only one of Selby’s four novels I’ve read yet that doesn’t feel lived in. He may have been a lot of things, but Cubby was never a gigolo, apparently. Gigolo aunt, maybe.
Recommended for people that like books that start in the middle, or people that refer to women as ‘broads’ dozens of times per day/page.
It was first published by Playboy Press for a reason, swingers.
Recommended for people that like books that start in the middle, or people that refer to women as ‘broads’ dozens of times per day/page.
It was first published by Playboy Press for a reason, swingers.
January 29, 2018
Selby takes on what it means to be consumed by guilt, but lacking the ability to refrain from certain passions. This results, predictably, in heartbreak of the truest kind, the kind you do to yourself. The prose was easy to read and definitely unique to Selby. My only complaint would be the frantic nature of the end of the book, I think it would have dealt a heftier blow if it kept on pace with the rest of the writing.
October 6, 2022
Poor Linda :(
I struggled to finished this one, my first Selby book in about twenty years. Familiar with the author, I knew darn well where this was heading and willed myself to finish it. I appreciate Hubert Selby but I wonder how many can say they really "enjoy" his books?
Rough read but not nearly as depressing as Requiem for a Dream. If you really want to bum yourself out, start there!
I struggled to finished this one, my first Selby book in about twenty years. Familiar with the author, I knew darn well where this was heading and willed myself to finish it. I appreciate Hubert Selby but I wonder how many can say they really "enjoy" his books?
Rough read but not nearly as depressing as Requiem for a Dream. If you really want to bum yourself out, start there!
November 26, 2020
Run away. Seriously, this is not a book for 2020. What a goddamn nightmare of a book (as all Selby's books are, but man this one feels more personal or intimate or something).
Ok, let me give you the premise: a young, successful young man named Harry slowly starts to lose his mind, drive by a truly insane need for adrenaline. That's it, that's the book.
Except... shit is unhinged.
Honestly, as fucked up as it is, I liked this one a lot. It was perfectly done, the slow descent into madness. Every step seemed completely believable because of the delicateness with which Selby set it up. Also, weirdly, Harry is easily one of the more appealing of Selby's protagonists. To me, anyway. Not sure what that says about my brain.
~~~READ HARDER CHALLENGE 2020~~~
#22: a horror book published by an indie press (Marion Boyars Publishers)
Ok, let me give you the premise: a young, successful young man named Harry slowly starts to lose his mind, drive by a truly insane need for adrenaline. That's it, that's the book.
Except... shit is unhinged.
Honestly, as fucked up as it is, I liked this one a lot. It was perfectly done, the slow descent into madness. Every step seemed completely believable because of the delicateness with which Selby set it up. Also, weirdly, Harry is easily one of the more appealing of Selby's protagonists. To me, anyway. Not sure what that says about my brain.
~~~READ HARDER CHALLENGE 2020~~~
#22: a horror book published by an indie press (Marion Boyars Publishers)
October 13, 2013
I read "The Demon" for the first time back in 2011, in one sitting no less. Anyone here read "American Psycho?" Okay, then you have a general idea already of who Harry White is and what he becomes. You can tell from around page 3 where this is going, but "The Demon" is one of those rare books which vindicates itself by making the ride worthwhile. It shows its work. It gives us the unbounded 'yes man;' someone who has been wildly successful in just about everything he has ever attempted, save for his relationship with his mother.
Harry White has everything; a lucrative career, money, intelligence, athleticism, loving parents, sexual prowess. But, Harry's internal life is an unrelenting hell of addiction and guilt. He starts out hooked on sex, but as you might suppose, this incrementally progresses. Selby's diction is a broken stream of dialogue which does a brilliant job of conveying Harry's broken, anfractuous thought patterns and self-justifications until you come to see that the man is living a phantom hell under a guise of success. Lots of Selby's work is about love, about the artificial semblances which people substitute for real spiritual fulfillment out of necessity. Harry White is no exception.
What this book does is it hands you the apotheosis of ideals. It says you want it, you got it. Infinite sex? Okay, here you go. No woman can say no to the charming, indefatigable Harry White. Fortune 500 status? All yours. A loving family? Sure, why not? It gives Harry White everything, bar nothing, that modern society (well, modern as of the 1950s) has to offer. But all of these things, to Harry White, are just appurtenances to destruction. They feed his habits, fuel his narcissistic rages, turn him from a generally decent, nice guy into something way worse.
The verdict isn't an indictment of materialism like you'd expect, really. No, the verdict lays the responsibility for Harry White on the shoulders of everyone, no less Harry White himself. There were a million times where someone could have seen him, stopped him, helped him help himself because Harry knew that he was sick and wanted to get better, he just didn't know how. That's where the true tragedy of this book lies.
The prose here is gritty, seedy, very intense. It's not for everyone. But it's also a universal story because everyone has the potential to become a Harry White. This one will haunt you.
Harry White has everything; a lucrative career, money, intelligence, athleticism, loving parents, sexual prowess. But, Harry's internal life is an unrelenting hell of addiction and guilt. He starts out hooked on sex, but as you might suppose, this incrementally progresses. Selby's diction is a broken stream of dialogue which does a brilliant job of conveying Harry's broken, anfractuous thought patterns and self-justifications until you come to see that the man is living a phantom hell under a guise of success. Lots of Selby's work is about love, about the artificial semblances which people substitute for real spiritual fulfillment out of necessity. Harry White is no exception.
What this book does is it hands you the apotheosis of ideals. It says you want it, you got it. Infinite sex? Okay, here you go. No woman can say no to the charming, indefatigable Harry White. Fortune 500 status? All yours. A loving family? Sure, why not? It gives Harry White everything, bar nothing, that modern society (well, modern as of the 1950s) has to offer. But all of these things, to Harry White, are just appurtenances to destruction. They feed his habits, fuel his narcissistic rages, turn him from a generally decent, nice guy into something way worse.
The verdict isn't an indictment of materialism like you'd expect, really. No, the verdict lays the responsibility for Harry White on the shoulders of everyone, no less Harry White himself. There were a million times where someone could have seen him, stopped him, helped him help himself because Harry knew that he was sick and wanted to get better, he just didn't know how. That's where the true tragedy of this book lies.
The prose here is gritty, seedy, very intense. It's not for everyone. But it's also a universal story because everyone has the potential to become a Harry White. This one will haunt you.
July 21, 2011
Hubert Selby Jr, most recently known for being the writer of Requiem for a Dream, is becoming one of my favorite authors. Selby was clearly disgusted with humanity and his seething bitterness was brought to life in his novels. Last Exit to Brooklyn was the first book of his I read which hooked me as a fan immediately. Banned in several countries, Last Exit is a brutal and unforgiving take on the realities of a big city and failed attempts at normalcy in a family atmosphere.
The Demon is a perfect example of the old adage, "he has demons," for someone who struggles with inner turmoil and can't be helped. Many authors have attempted the "sane person loses his mind" story, but nothing will compete with The Demon in that regard. I've never been more convinced of a character in a book who just completely loses his mind and Selby's erratic and unconventional writing style builds an atmosphere of panic that will affect the reader. Harry White is an immensely successful businessman in New York City with an amazing wife and family who struggles to control his temptations and the only way to satisfy his demons is to slowly up the ante. Selby never tries to make him a sympathetic or tragic character; to try and make his actions seem reasonable or identifiable. He simply shows you the essence of a complete mental and emotional breakdown that erupts to pure insanity.
You can be sure that Hubert Selby Jr's stories will not end on a positive note. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with him. I am in awe at the intensity of his writing.
The Demon is a perfect example of the old adage, "he has demons," for someone who struggles with inner turmoil and can't be helped. Many authors have attempted the "sane person loses his mind" story, but nothing will compete with The Demon in that regard. I've never been more convinced of a character in a book who just completely loses his mind and Selby's erratic and unconventional writing style builds an atmosphere of panic that will affect the reader. Harry White is an immensely successful businessman in New York City with an amazing wife and family who struggles to control his temptations and the only way to satisfy his demons is to slowly up the ante. Selby never tries to make him a sympathetic or tragic character; to try and make his actions seem reasonable or identifiable. He simply shows you the essence of a complete mental and emotional breakdown that erupts to pure insanity.
You can be sure that Hubert Selby Jr's stories will not end on a positive note. There is no light at the end of the tunnel with him. I am in awe at the intensity of his writing.
January 29, 2008
Defenetly for me his best work,darkly classic,some say long but it's the point,the guy possessed try to go normal and slowly,so very slowly slide back in.
The episode of the passion for the plants is the exemple,when it stop ,they all die,it take ages.
You need to be in good form to read it so,not very cheerfull,to say the least.When the book his finished you find life light and bright.
Compared to most of the palaniuk,ellis,ect...Selby his very classic,no trick,just pure Dark litterature
The episode of the passion for the plants is the exemple,when it stop ,they all die,it take ages.
You need to be in good form to read it so,not very cheerfull,to say the least.When the book his finished you find life light and bright.
Compared to most of the palaniuk,ellis,ect...Selby his very classic,no trick,just pure Dark litterature
March 7, 2014
Wow, that was an intense ending. I've read a couple of Selby's other books (Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream), and this one was different in that Selby chooses to write about the life of a man who ostensibly has everything he wants in life. In the other books I've read by Selby, Selby writes about drug addicts and thieves and explores desperate characters that an ordinary person would already presume to be a part of degenerative, base activities . What makes this book different from those is the fact that in this book, Selby explores the mind of Harry White, a successful Wall Street executive. Harry has everything he could want in life: a loving wife, a job that he loves, two young children that adore him, and yet he still finds himself constantly at odds with "The Demon" inside of him. "The Demon" inside of Harry is symbolic of a void that Harry feels in his life; as the book progresses, Harry has to go increasingly desperate measure in order to appease the demon inside of him. Selby does a masterful job of making Harry's descent into madness believable and somehow manages to make the reader feel empathy for Harry, who is basically a horrible human being. Selby is one of the best-- if not the best-- at getting into the heads of his characters. Selby's experiments with style and stream of conscious do wonders in getting into the head of a character, I don't know why more writers haven't tried adapting his style. By the end of the novel, I had a claustrophobic feeling of being inside of Harry's head, and the novel's haunting conclusion left me in awe of Mr. Selby's skills.
Note: I would have given this book five stars, but the middle section was pretty lackluster and having read a couple of Selby's other works(which were masterpieces), I know that Selby could have tightened the middle section up and kept the intensity of the beginning and end of "The Demon" throughout the novel if he had wanted to. I most likely would have given 5 stars if I didn't know Selby's full potential.
Note: I would have given this book five stars, but the middle section was pretty lackluster and having read a couple of Selby's other works(which were masterpieces), I know that Selby could have tightened the middle section up and kept the intensity of the beginning and end of "The Demon" throughout the novel if he had wanted to. I most likely would have given 5 stars if I didn't know Selby's full potential.
September 17, 2025
‘Last exit to Brooklyn,’ I thought, was excellent. ‘The Room,’ I didn’t like at all, in fact, if I remember correctly, I gave up on it before I was, at most, a quarter of the way through, although I didn’t give up on Hubert Selby Jr. ‘The Demon,’ though, I found to be incredible, and, unfortunately, not in a positive sense of the word: No woman, it seems, however previously virtuous, could walk down the street at lunchtime without being led astray by the charms of our predatory hero, or should I say, anti-hero, who overtaken by the promptings of an inner demon, with no regard at all for the glistening prospects of its host’s burgeoning career, had him lead his prey off the straight and narrow and into the darkness of some cheap hotel. Same demon also had a penchant for petty and pointless theft, which left our man, initially, trawling his own place of work at night in search of worthless trinkets, and even struggling with burdensome, and soon to be abandoned, office equipment that asked questions of his physical abilities as well as his sanity, and that’s all before we get to the senseless murders.
In between times, the novel played out like an American made-for-TV movie of the type that seemed to dominate our screens in Ireland in the recessionary 1980s: Shallow, happy people, living a life of material luxury that very few of us back then would have been in anyway acquainted with (though were we meant to aspire to?), our man having wed the only woman who had, hitherto, been able to resist him.
All that being said, it’s not a novel you can easily forget about: It leaves a mark, albeit, a sense of gloom, or, maybe, better to say, a bitter aftertaste. But I’m still looking forward to reading ‘Requiem for a Dream.’
,
In between times, the novel played out like an American made-for-TV movie of the type that seemed to dominate our screens in Ireland in the recessionary 1980s: Shallow, happy people, living a life of material luxury that very few of us back then would have been in anyway acquainted with (though were we meant to aspire to?), our man having wed the only woman who had, hitherto, been able to resist him.
All that being said, it’s not a novel you can easily forget about: It leaves a mark, albeit, a sense of gloom, or, maybe, better to say, a bitter aftertaste. But I’m still looking forward to reading ‘Requiem for a Dream.’
,
May 5, 2010
Third book I've read by Selby Jnr and its easy to see why he is enduring and inspirational. Another excellent, non judgemental review of a seriously flawed character.
Harry White lives as an only child with his devoted parents at the start of the book. He is in his mid 20s and gets his kicks from sex, usually with married wormen, where there are no committments. In one of a number of great set pieces (the greatest coming at the end, with Harrys fall from grace) he abandons his friends in a baseball game to chase some skirt.
Harry is also a successful business man and climbs the slippery slope within his nameless organisation. Taking advice from his boss, he settles down, taking on Linda and bringing a couple of kids into the world. Despite his outward respectability a works event with prostitutes sends him back on the downward spiral.
This descent is beutifully written - starting off slow and moving further and further into addiction until he reaches low points - sleeping with alcoholics in very rough surroundings.
Cue mental collapse and being reborn - work succcess coming back. However, he looks for other ways to satisfy the itch and starts on petty crime working his way to murder as the thrill wears off.
He really is on the way down and the final 30 pages are breathless as he commits his final crime, that links the theme of the book together - sin and redemption.
Absolutely wonderful writing - unflinching, non accusing. He tells the stories of working class life, inner doubt better than anyone.
Harry White lives as an only child with his devoted parents at the start of the book. He is in his mid 20s and gets his kicks from sex, usually with married wormen, where there are no committments. In one of a number of great set pieces (the greatest coming at the end, with Harrys fall from grace) he abandons his friends in a baseball game to chase some skirt.
Harry is also a successful business man and climbs the slippery slope within his nameless organisation. Taking advice from his boss, he settles down, taking on Linda and bringing a couple of kids into the world. Despite his outward respectability a works event with prostitutes sends him back on the downward spiral.
This descent is beutifully written - starting off slow and moving further and further into addiction until he reaches low points - sleeping with alcoholics in very rough surroundings.
Cue mental collapse and being reborn - work succcess coming back. However, he looks for other ways to satisfy the itch and starts on petty crime working his way to murder as the thrill wears off.
He really is on the way down and the final 30 pages are breathless as he commits his final crime, that links the theme of the book together - sin and redemption.
Absolutely wonderful writing - unflinching, non accusing. He tells the stories of working class life, inner doubt better than anyone.
March 17, 2016
After having been floored by Selby's "The Room" a few months ago, I went into "The Demon" not expecting to be as moved and instead I found myself bored, stiff. Our protagonist is another Harry White and he works for a large corporation (and none of this works, not his relationship with the company or anything else with the exception of 3 pages of a sizeable paragraph around page 95) and sleeps with as many women as he can fit into his schedule, loving this little activity so much he even created his personal game to be played against the women's will. However, as life goes, the story goes and he marries Linda and subsequently she pops out a couple little Whites. The only things that work in this set-up are: Linda's reaction and emotional states with regards to Harry's behaviour and portions of Harry's manic inner monologues where the reader feels as tortured as he is. Sadly, despite some terrific passages and a couple interesting characters, this story never rises to much of anything and ends on a rather dull and predictable note. "The Demon" will likely only be enjoyed by big fans of Selby and should not be the first Selby book one reads, no matter the captions on the front and back of the jacket proclaiming this to be his best - it is his weakest offering.
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March 13, 2021
A phenomenally woven tale of wrath and woe with hints of precursors to what became modern transgressive royalty in the form of BEE, IW, CP and others. Typical Brooklyn homage to an earlier era in the penultimate mood with effortless swings to places of darkness you thought wouldn't be possible and of which only HSJ could take us on his hounds.
Get past the home-maker scenes spread across ~50-60 pages somewhere around the middle and wham, bam, thank-you mam, a tremendous novel doth thee make. You may feel this is not the usual HSJ, treat these emotions as a bad trip and soak up the familiar sunshine to be had towards the end.
You'll leave in shock, awe-struck and thankful you rid it out.
Definitely up there with the best of novels though more mature and more poetically charged.
My reading order has been: Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Room, Requiem for a Dream, Song of the Silent Snow and now this, The Demon.
Get past the home-maker scenes spread across ~50-60 pages somewhere around the middle and wham, bam, thank-you mam, a tremendous novel doth thee make. You may feel this is not the usual HSJ, treat these emotions as a bad trip and soak up the familiar sunshine to be had towards the end.
You'll leave in shock, awe-struck and thankful you rid it out.
Definitely up there with the best of novels though more mature and more poetically charged.
My reading order has been: Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Room, Requiem for a Dream, Song of the Silent Snow and now this, The Demon.
May 5, 2018
Interesting
I liked this book very much but I can’t give it 5 stars because, although I understood that I was looking at the stream of consciousness of un raveling man, it was too much. Several times I skipped a number of pages because the stream of consciousness was just relentless and consuming; again, I get that the words were doing their job but it was too much. I also felt the end act of the main character was anti-climactic. I felt a lot of pity for the character’s family and for the character himself. I’m looking forward to reading another book by Selby; now that I know what to expect perhaps I won’t react quite so ambivalently to his style.
I liked this book very much but I can’t give it 5 stars because, although I understood that I was looking at the stream of consciousness of un raveling man, it was too much. Several times I skipped a number of pages because the stream of consciousness was just relentless and consuming; again, I get that the words were doing their job but it was too much. I also felt the end act of the main character was anti-climactic. I felt a lot of pity for the character’s family and for the character himself. I’m looking forward to reading another book by Selby; now that I know what to expect perhaps I won’t react quite so ambivalently to his style.
August 29, 2013
The dude could use a few quotation marks
October 20, 2024
''The incorrigible wheel tilts at a grotesque angle.''
- Alexis Marshall, Daughters
Six down, one to go. Another hit from Cubby himself. This one is a little different than the others. For the first half or so, it's strangely... happy? In a somewhat unsettling sense, of course, and always with that dark shadow lurking beneath the surface. Still, it was a different experience than what you would expect from Selby Jr. Brilliant written as always, with the quirks that defines his writing. Using / instead of an apostrophe, and often just not bothering with using any of them at all. Refusing to use quotation marks, leaving it up to the reader to figure out when a person is speaking. Often having long, long paragraphs with barely any commas, and no periods at all. Having the main character be named Harry. Just wonderful. However, that's what you expect going into one of his works, and frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
'The Demon' doesn't have the bleak, uncompromising analysis of a city and its people that 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' does. It's not the relentlessly depressing downward spiral of ''Requiem For a Dream' (although it does get very close in the last third). It's also doesn't contain the depraved sickness and grotesqueness of 'The Room', the most disturbing book I've ever read. Instead, it feels kind of like an amalgamation of all three, but with the added twist of having romance along the way. A tragic romance, mind you, but hey that's doomed love for you. If anything, the book is somewhat reminiscent of 'American Psycho' with bits and pieces of 'My Work Is Not Yet Done' by Thomas Ligotti. The character study of a man descending into pure and utter depravity of the former, and the corporate horror of the latter. It's good stuff. I absolutely loathed the main character, Harry White, but that was undoubtedly on purpose. He represents the worst aspects of humanity, and goddamn was it effective. Read this book.
Anna is goddess, queen, and mentor all in one. A tremendous pillar that every person should have in their lives.
Let's cheer up a bit, shall we? This shit is bleak, and it needs to be offset by something a lot more cheerful, something melodic and sweet. A song. 'Follow You' by modernlove. very much scratches that itch. In fact, while you're already listening to the EP, give 'Islands' and especially 'Us' a shot too. It's catchy stuff.
Toodles!
- Alexis Marshall, Daughters
Six down, one to go. Another hit from Cubby himself. This one is a little different than the others. For the first half or so, it's strangely... happy? In a somewhat unsettling sense, of course, and always with that dark shadow lurking beneath the surface. Still, it was a different experience than what you would expect from Selby Jr. Brilliant written as always, with the quirks that defines his writing. Using / instead of an apostrophe, and often just not bothering with using any of them at all. Refusing to use quotation marks, leaving it up to the reader to figure out when a person is speaking. Often having long, long paragraphs with barely any commas, and no periods at all. Having the main character be named Harry. Just wonderful. However, that's what you expect going into one of his works, and frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
'The Demon' doesn't have the bleak, uncompromising analysis of a city and its people that 'Last Exit to Brooklyn' does. It's not the relentlessly depressing downward spiral of ''Requiem For a Dream' (although it does get very close in the last third). It's also doesn't contain the depraved sickness and grotesqueness of 'The Room', the most disturbing book I've ever read. Instead, it feels kind of like an amalgamation of all three, but with the added twist of having romance along the way. A tragic romance, mind you, but hey that's doomed love for you. If anything, the book is somewhat reminiscent of 'American Psycho' with bits and pieces of 'My Work Is Not Yet Done' by Thomas Ligotti. The character study of a man descending into pure and utter depravity of the former, and the corporate horror of the latter. It's good stuff. I absolutely loathed the main character, Harry White, but that was undoubtedly on purpose. He represents the worst aspects of humanity, and goddamn was it effective. Read this book.
Anna is goddess, queen, and mentor all in one. A tremendous pillar that every person should have in their lives.
Let's cheer up a bit, shall we? This shit is bleak, and it needs to be offset by something a lot more cheerful, something melodic and sweet. A song. 'Follow You' by modernlove. very much scratches that itch. In fact, while you're already listening to the EP, give 'Islands' and especially 'Us' a shot too. It's catchy stuff.
Toodles!
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