Hubert Selby Jr., Wrote "Last Exit To Brooklyn"
Bill Schenley
By ANTHONY DePALMA
Hubert Selby Jr., the Brooklyn-born ex-merchant mariner who
turned to drugs and to writing after cheating death and
created a lasting vision of urban hell in his novel "Last
Exit to Brooklyn," died yesterday at his home in Los
Angeles. He was 75.
The cause was chronic pulmonary disease, said his son, Bill
Selby, who added that his father's death was the long-term
consequence of the tuberculosis he had contracted while at
sea during World War II.
Mr. Selby had no formal training, and disdained the prim
order of punctuation and plot. His writing was spare and
direct. But what most marked his work was the stark despair
and loneliness he described in such shocking terms that some
of his work was blocked for a time in the United States, and
later England, as obscene.
He said he did not understand what the fuss was about.
"The events that take place are the way people are," he said
in an interview with The New York Times in 1988, describing
the gang rapes, brutal beatings and countless perversions
described in "Last Exit." "These are not literary
characters; these are real people. I knew these people. How
can anybody look inside themselves and be surprised at the
hatred and violence in the world? It's inside all of us."
"Tralala," one of the stories that make up the book, was the
subject of an obscenity trial involving The Provincetown
Review, which published it in 1961. And when "Last Exit,"
which consists of "Tralala" and five other loosely connected
stories, was published in England in 1966, a jury found it
to be obscene and fined its publisher.
The novel describes the seedy underbelly of the Red Hook
waterfront neighborhood in the Brooklyn of the 1950's, which
is depicted as a wasteland prowled by gangs, whores and
transvestites. When it was published by Grove Press in 1964,
its repulsive language and blast-furnace images made the
novel difficult either to accept or reject.
"This is a brutal book - shocking, exhausting, depressing,"
wrote Eliot Fremont-Smith in the first review of the book in
The Times. Yet, despite the gutter language and obscene
grunts of the dark characters in the novel, Mr.
Fremont-Smith said that the book could not be easily
dismissed. "The profound depression it causes - once one
starts seriously to read it - is a measure of an authentic
power which carries through and beyond revulsion," he wrote.
"Just who should be asked to undergo this experience is
another matter."
Hubert Selby Jr. was born on July 27, 1928, in Brooklyn, the
son of Adalin and Hubert Selby Sr., a coal miner from
Kentucky who served in the merchant marine for several years
until his son was born. During World War II the senior Mr.
Selby returned to the merchant marine. His son, though
underage, convinced the recruiters he was old enough to join
as well. While at sea he developed tuberculosis. After going
through radical surgery and more than a year of
hospitalization, he was given no chance of recovery.
He did recover, but was hooked on the morphine he had
received during his hospitalization. He started drinking.
With no other prospects, he decided to try writing, although
he once said he had never read anything until he was an
adult. While he wrote the stories that went into "Last Exit
to Brooklyn" he worked for a time as an insurance analyst in
Manhattan.
Before the book was published in 1964, Mr. Selby's writing
had earned him less than $100. Despite its bleakness, the
book's underlying message of redemption through
self-destruction caught on in a United States about to enter
the radical 1960's.
Mr. Selby overcame his addictions and moved to the West
Coast, where he wrote several other books, including "The
Room" (1971) "The Demon" (1976), and "The Willow Tree"
(1998). In 1989 "Last Exit" was made into a film by the
German director Uli Edel.
Hubert Selby Jr. was married three times, most recently in
1969 to Suzanne Victoria Selby, who survives him, along with
four children: Claudia Adams of Marrow Bone, Ky.; Kyle, of
Yorktown, N.Y.; Rachel Kuehn of Corona, Calif.; and Bill, of
Loma Linda, Calif.
At the time of his death, Mr. Selby, a high school dropout,
taught a graduate writing class at the University of
Southern California. His son Bill Selby said he was also
working on a novel and a screenplay.
J.D. Baldwin
In the previous article, Bill Schenley <stra...@ma.rr.com> wrote:
> Hubert Selby Jr., the Brooklyn-born ex-merchant mariner who
> turned to drugs and to writing after cheating death and
> created a lasting vision of urban hell in his novel "Last
> Exit to Brooklyn," died yesterday at his home in Los
> Angeles. He was 75.
I'm a little surprised that there is no mention whatever of his lesser
novel, "Requiem for a Dream," which was made into a pretty good (and
successful) picture just a few years ago. It is one of the most
disturbing films I have ever seen -- much worse than its cousin, "Last
Exit."
Also, Selby himself has a memorable cameo in that film as a dickhead
prison guard who won't stop (verbally) tormenting a prisoner on work
detail.
> Hubert Selby Jr. was married three times, most recently in
> 1969 to Suzanne Victoria Selby, who survives him, along with
> four children: Claudia Adams of Marrow Bone, Ky.; Kyle, of
> Yorktown, N.Y.; Rachel Kuehn of Corona, Calif.; and Bill, of
> Loma Linda, Calif.
"Marrow Bone, Ky."?
--
_+_ From the catapult of |If anyone disagrees with any statement I make, I
_|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |am quite prepared not only to retract it, but also
\ / bal...@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it. -T. Lehrer
***~~~~-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Kentucky Wizard
>
> "Marrow Bone, Ky."?
Actually, it's "Marrowbone", one word, not two. It's located in
the South-Central part of Kentucky, not far north of the
Tennessee line.
Of course, Marrowbone, Ky. is not to be confused with "Monkey's
Eyebrow, Ky.", which is located near Paducah, Ky.
--
© The Wiz ®
«¤»¥«¤»¥«¤»
PirateJohn
>
>
>Actually, it's "Marrowbone", one word, not two. It's located in
>the South-Central part of Kentucky, not far north of the
>Tennessee line.
Just a hop, skip and a jump down I-75 from Big Bone Lick ... ;)
~~~~~~~~~
Drug free, no-spin radio: http://www.airamericaradio.com/
Democracy in action: http://www.moveon.org
Like father, like son. One term.
The Avocado Avenger
>
> FROM: The New York Times ~
> By ANTHONY DePALMA
>
> Hubert Selby Jr., the Brooklyn-born ex-merchant mariner who
> turned to drugs and to writing after cheating death and
> created a lasting vision of urban hell in his novel "Last
> Exit to Brooklyn," died yesterday at his home in Los
> Angeles. He was 75.
Ah, hell. I had just started reading some of his work, after hearing
him read some of "Last Exit". Terrific stuff. I'm sorry to hear of his
passing.
Stacia