Waiting Period [Paperback]

A fan might reasonably suppose the title refers to the interminable length of time that passed between each of Selby's novels--seven years separated his explosive debut Last Exit From Brooklyn and The Room, while The Willow Tree came two full decades after Requiem For A Dream--but the waiting period in question actually has to do with purchasing a gun. The anonymous narrator of Waiting Period begins in the depths of despair, ready to buy a gun and end his misery. Because a computer server is down the day he goes to make this purchase, he has to wait a week to pass a background check.

William Burroughs once noted that no matter how depressed he got, he managed to put off suicidal thoughts by thinking of other people he'd rather kill than himself. During the period between having made his initial decision for suicide, the narrator comes to a similar conclusion and resolves to kill a bureaucrat at the VA who he feels has unfairly denied him benefits rather than commit suicide. In short form, he plots the murder and sees it through; he experiences a letdown afterward, collapsing into despair before finding a new target, establishing a cycle that is completed one more time in the book.

In long form, what happens is Selby really depicts the man's inner struggle: his rationalizations, his emotional jags, his worries, his concerns about how to do it and how to get away with it. Like The Room & The Demon, Selby gives us a powerful picture of obsession and delusion. Like The Room, the action all takes place inside the head of the narrator; also like that book, the narrator is completely unlikeable, yet somehow sympathetically written. Waiting Period, though, has its moments of humor, while the earlier book was completely humorless.

The Demon was different in that the character had some qualities that were appealing before he got sucked down into his abyss. But the inside view of watching both men as they succumb to their personal demons is similar. But this earlier novel, though lightened slightly by occasional moments of humor, was still essentially a grim work. Waiting Room is hardly a laugh-riot, but it does seem like a knowing parody of Selby and his earlier writing. The character goes off on riffs--some funny, some simply disturbing--in the process of plotting the crimes he sees as Providence. I liked the touch about him reveling in the Dodgers' losing streak as he read the daily paper; Brooklyn native Selby probably did the same thing in the last years of his life as a professor at USC.

There is one other voice that appears in the book, and it's hard to determine what it is. In-between long periods of musing from the book's main character come interludes discussing him approvingly from an unknown source set in italics. Sometimes the voice seems like the Greek Chorus, sometimes like the author, sometimes God and, increasingly throughout the book, the Devil. It's an interesting experimental device; I'm not sure it's altogether a success, but it is something to think about--though it's hardly as if the rest of the book is short on that type of thing.

There is some very good writing in the book, and the first 2/3s of it is pretty gripping. Selby seems to lose the reins toward the end, though, and the book doesn't really come to a proper conclusion. It just sort of peters out. It's not the masterpiece that Brooklyn, The Demon, et al were, but it is an interesting update of his earlier material and still miles ahead of most of the dross out there. In the end, would I recommend that people buy this book? If you're the type of unconventional reader I am, I would say yes, pick up a copy. In addition to this book, let me recommend another great new title I picked up off Amazon called "The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition" by Richard Perez, a very special book, both funny and sad - one I can't stop thinking about.