Product Description

Few books have aroused so much strong feeling as Last Exit to Brooklyn, with reactions ranging from the highest admiration, through horror, pity and disgust, to the blind fury of those who are opposed to the exposure of social evil. Its merits, challenged first by private and then by public prosecution, have been tested in the courts. Those who have spoken for it, both as an original work of modern fiction and as a true documentary account of life in a section of Brooklyn, leave us without a doubt that it is one of the most important books of the post-war period.

The characters who inhabit the book are unforgettable: Harry, the strike leader, who during his weeks of power discovers something of his true nature; Tralala, who rejects the only love she is offered and sinks swiftly to the lowest level of prostitution; Georgette, the 'hip queer' with pathetic aspirations to culture; Abraham, the 'cool ass' black stud, with his girls, his 'bigass' Cadillac, and his undernourished family; the debris of American civilisation, for whom the author ultimately makes us feel a profound compassion.

Last Exit to Brooklyn was found obscene at the Old Bailey in November 1967, a decision which was reversed by a historic Appeal Court judgement in July 1968. Now this 'honest and terrible book', as Anthony Burgess describes it in his Introduction to this new edition, can take its rightful place as one of the major books of our time.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #41292 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-28
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

New York Times Book Review
'Selby's place is in the front rank of American novelists ... to understand his work is to understand the anguish of America.'

Allen Ginsburg
'Last Exit to Brooklyn will explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in 100 years'

The Spectator
'An urgent tickertape from hell'

Customer Reviews

A compelling yet uneasy read
I am very glad that I've read this book, but now I have, I will never read it again.

It is a hard-boiled account about marginalised people - a prostitute, a transvestite, a convict, and a sexually troubled trade union leader amongst others. The style of writing is utterly refreshing and compelling, the characterisation astonishing, and beating from deep within the book is a heart and humanity. It is not though a dispassioned or sanitised book - the words "raw" and "gritty" are a massive understatement at times.

Be in no doubt that this book can be brutal, it pulls no punches and it often leaves a dirty bloody taste in your mouth whilst reading it.

It's a very good book, there's no doubt about it, but be prepared for a painful and uneasy read. There are no happy endings.

An ugly tale that is beautifully compelling
Last exit to Brooklyn is the only Selby Jnr. book I have read, yet will undoubtedly not be the last. Read in a stuffy hostel in Spain while ill, I was transfixed by a world of degredation, mysogyny, and utter contempt. The characters that Selby Jnr. portrays are visceral and hateful - Tralala is almost like a modern day Lulu, and ultimately deserves what she gets. Vince and his pals are hateful characters not unlike Burgess' Clockwork Orange mob - disrespectful to everyone and everything and getting away with it. It seems that Selby Jnr. is trying to show how the characters all use and abuse each other and ultimately, none are the better for it. This book is seedy, and the characters hateful, yet it had me gripped to the end.I still don't know why I enjoyed it so much and could not put it down - maybe this is Selby Jnr.s way of showing that we can be just as perverse as these fictional characters. Sickeningly enjoyable and made even more contreversial when thinking of the trouble Selby Jnr. had in getting it published. Will definitely be reading more of his work.

A stunning vision of an inner city hell
This was Hubert Selby Jr. debut novel and such was the power of the book that in the UK, the original publishers were taken to court to be prosecuted for obscenity. Luckily for us the case was thrown out but the book has a raw power that is both compassionate and horrifying.

Selby writes sketches of various lives living in Brooklyn. All trying to survive on a estate that continually grinds them down. People do nasty things to each other but Selby doesn't condemn his characters but trys to comprehend them.

The stories are bitter and raw, from Tralala who cannot distinguish between sex and love to Harry, a repressed homosexual who lets out his anger on his workers, his wife, his children because he has never come to terms with his sexuality.

Selby writes in a prose style that ignores every rule of school grammer bar one: it has to be understood by the reader.

There are no speech marks, semi-colons and rarely does a comma appear. The effect is stunning, the text hits the mind like bullets as the emotion crosses out of the page. If you thought William Burrough's 'Naked Lunch' was a daring literary experiment, try 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'.