From Publishers Weekly
More than a decade after the publication of his story collection Song of the Silent Snow, Selby (Last Exit to Brooklyn) returns with a breathless and unconvincing tale of the fall and redemption of Bobby, a black teenager in the Bronx. At the start of the novel, Bobby and his girlfriend, Maria, are attacked by a Hispanic gang in punishment for their cross-ethnic dating. Bobby is beaten with a chain; Maria has lye thrown in her face and eventually dies. Refusing to be hospitalized, Bobby falls into the care of Moishe (aka Werner Schultz), a widower who survived the concentration camps (he claims, however, that he is not a Jew) and the death of his son in Vietnam. While Bobby plots an elaborate revenge against the Hispanic gang, Moishe seeks to impress on him the dangers of hatred and the importance of forgiveness, lessons he learned in the camps. Best read as a sort of fable, Selby's novel renders few details of ghetto life: the characters' incessant slang rings false, and the story's exact moment remains fuzzy (though the fact that the street weapons of choice appear to be knives and chains rather than semi-automatics would seem to put it somewhere in the past). Selby's characteristically chaotic prose removes the story even further from reality. What the novel does have is genuine passion, and Moishe's deep belief in forgiveness and acceptance win our sympathy, if not our belief.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Library Journal
Famous for his 1964 Warholian masterpiece, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Selby hangs his sixth novel on a sometimes precious plot made famous in the 1966 Henry Hathaway film Nevada Smith. Five pages into the book, South Bronx teenager Bobby and his girlfriend, Maria, are jumped by four Latinos led by Raul, who beat Bobby with a chain and throw lye into Maria's face. When she is disfigured, Maria commits suicide, and Bobby, who has taken refuge with Holocaust survivor Moishe, vows revenge. Moishe teaches Bobby about the debilitating effects of hate; when the opportunity comes for Bobby to kill Raul, he rejects it. One reads Selby's work for the style?his prose seems like verbal jazz riffs?and the story is secondary. Though not for the faint of heart, this book is recommended for literary collections and those strong on contemporary urban stories.?Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of New York
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
