Last Exit to Brooklyn

A truly memorable but highly brutal depiction of depravity in the poorer parts of Brooklyn. Selby Jr. is unflinching in his capturing of the chaotic shadow life of this district of New York. There's violence, sex, alcoholism and more. In each of the six interlinked stories, the tragedy lies in the fact that the characters are trapped by the culture and expectations of the streets in which they live. Repressed homosexuality and transvestitism are recurring themes. Selby Jr. counted Joyce as one of his influences — and this is evident in the construction of his prose — but Zola is perhaps the more relevant template for the author's angle: amoral realism, or telling it how it is — an often short, nasty and brutish life on unforgiving streets. Much of the joy, however, in Last Exit, comes from the lyrical nature of the prose. For Selby Jr., Beethoven mattered more than any author; creating naturalistic, pitch-perfect prose where barely a word seems out of place (and the writing comes across as automatic) is non-trivial. “Strike” and “Tralala” were probably the two most memorable episodes.

By Hubert Selby Jr.