 "Last
Exit To Brooklyn"
by Hubert Selby Jr.
Grove Press, 1957
Written during the time
when Beat writers dominated, Selby came out with a series of vignettes
that read like Beat fiction, but shows a dark, brutal, urban reality that
place him light years away from the coffee houses in Greenwich Village.
Selby's world is a mixture of violence, aggravated desperation, and unresolved
hopelessness that destroys everyone and everything it touches. It's like
Camus taking a joyride into Dante's Hell. We are shown tragic heroes who
we learn to love and hate, despise and revere. The main stories are: "The
Queen is Dead," about the transvestite Georgette and her fantasy of becoming
queen of her court; "Tralala," about the rise and fall of beauty;
"Strike," about a sad man and his delusions of political power and
job place respect; and "Landsend," the coda of the books that is a breathtaking
and chaotic symphony of curses, screams, cries. Last Exit to Brooklyn
doesn't preach any sort optimistic transcendence, but rather shows us some
wonderfully flawed gems within a cruel world.
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