Customer Reviews

Last Exit to Brooklyn

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is a work of sheer genius by anyone's standards. Yes, it's raw, it's shocking even to those of us who thought nothing in modern fiction could shock us but it's one brilliantly sustained song of the brutal, the outcast, the desperate, and at times the cruel who exist inside all of us. I read it over and over again hearing it in my head aloud. I lose it for a few years, then grab it up again. The rhythm of the sentences is perfection. It's for all the time, and the movie -- though a different entity altogether -- was pretty damned fine too. Of course it couldn't be the book. No. It couldn't be quite that dark. Yet it had its own magnificently wrought violence. Selby sings! Here's to him from another writer!

Enjoyed Selby's prose...Tried to pick up another book after finishing "Brooklyn" and couldn't concentrate. Not for the squeamish or closed-minded. Definitely a re-read down the road.

I don't know whether it was deliberate or not, but Hubert Selby, Jr.'s LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN is a window into the hidden side of America's supposed banner years during the Eisenhower administration. Movies and television of this period depicted squeaky clean families in their squeaky clean houses (with the notable exception of I Love Lucy and The Honeymooners whose families lived in apartments). In this Father Knows Best world, no one worried about poverty, minorities, or women's rights, and the only evil was on the other side of the hemisphere in the USSR.

And then there's the world of LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN. This is the underclass of citizens that the nation preferred to ignore: pimps, hookers, thieves, junkies, drag queens, wife-beaters, and the thousands upon thousands of working class stiffs at the mercy of their union officials or their bosses, neither of which seem to have their best interests in mind. But this is no 'pity the poor' sort of the book, no HOW THE OTHER HALF LIVES (although I do wonder what kind of effect this book had upon its release). These characters, and they are fascinating, are not sentimentalized. Selby portrays most of them as brutal, unsympathetic, and as cruel to their own kind as anyone else. Even the drag queens, whom you would think would be a little understanding of each other, turn vicious at their best friends over the slightest insult. While very uneven in terms of pacing and tone, this is still a ferocious book which deserves reading.

Rocco Dormarunno, author of The Five Points.

Hubert Selby's novel Last Exit To Brooklyn is a harrowing and a sprawling portrait of underachievers in Brooklyn. A lot of it has to do with homosexuality, drag queens, drugs, financial and relationship problems, and living in bad neighborhoods. It was hard to read, due to lack of punctuation, and Selby's scatterbrain style of writing (he himself said in an interview that he had some sort of mental problem, so I can see that), but overall it was a good book and if you're willing to take an adventure into the underworld of Brooklyn and disillusionment, read this book.

Anyone who has lived in a city will recognise the stories narrated in this book even if he's never come to direct contact with the type of characters depicted in them.
It's an instinctive recognition though. I grew up part of my life in Queens N.Y and while reading through this book i felt that these were stories i heard as a kid being screamed through my window.

Shelby is not using any imagination in the "Last exit..." but this isn't his talent to begin with. His talent is being an impeccable "watcher", he has watched the world around him and he's been able to describe it with brutal accuracy, much like a camera filming riots or the daily life of anyone. You cant argue much with a camera and Shelby functions very much like a human one, simply or "simply" reproducing the reality we all love to ignore on paper.

It's certainly a world with very lil love or compassion to offer, the one Shelby describes, but for anyone who thinks this might be somewhat exaggerated i'd have to say this: look again and this time with your eyes open.
He chooses unmistakebly dark characters for his stories: prostitutes, dark dealers, cryptohomosexuals who lead the "normal" life on the surface and the such, but his knife cuts way deeper when he opts for the "guy next door" character, the one who lives in -again- "normal hell", the one who spends his life in an agony of pointless routine, who lives but doesnt live, who is there but he might've just as well (for his/her) sake not existed.

....
This is what the "Last exit..." is all about.

The schemes, the vanities, the shortcomings of the many different characters involved in Shelby's stories are maybe nothing you havent at least heard before, but do trust me, they do make up for one massive horror story.
Now, speaking of a horror story, horror film [fans] on reality. This applies spot on with this book.
It's a dark world out there, and no matter what your personal situation might be (even if it coincidentally is a lil better than the next guy's) there's no need painting it with rosy colors. It's what it is, and Shelby comes through with a disarming honesty about it. His first intention might not be honesty itself but you'll find it hard to fault him for what he chooses to bring to the surface.

The narrative style of this book is nothing short of genius, especially considering the time it was written. In a sense, picking your narrative style when writting a bok is very much like casting actors for a film. Cast the wrong ppl and the film goes down the drain, choose the wrong narrative technique and there goes your whole book being self-trashed.

Overall, if you like dark literature, if hi-fidelity reproduction of reality on paper is your thing you will be more than well served here. A true classic beyond any question.

I emphatically believe in the reading and writing of honest truth. As a reader, I much prefer the harsh, brutal and basic version of a story rather than it's rose-colored fantasy. 'Last Exit' Certainly belongs in that category; But, there is a fine line between the telling of the truth and the exploitation of it, and in his first novel, Selby crosses that line.

The book is a collection of short stories about a variety of people coexisting in the ghettos of Brooklyn post WWII. Homosexuals, Drug users, drag queens, a gang of thugs that steal, beat, rape and murder, child molesting union officers, Nazi-like tenants, baby killers, rednecks and white trash; this book has it all. I liked the fact that it was realistic and gave you a perspective from very different parts of this sub-culture. The author did an excellent job of conveying the energy and anger that everyone who lived in these projects must have felt on a daily basis. I think that JR. Selby shows the potential for becoming an excellent writer on society as it exists, but I donï¿t think he has perfected the craft in his first novel. Controversial subjects and explicit details were rehashed and drawn out simply for shock value, which is where this novel falls short. ï¿Last Exitï¿ was so constantly sadistic that it became a little boring, I felt like he was trying to hard to disgust his readers and show people that he had the guts to write this way, and not enough time perfecting his talent as a writer. Although I wouldnï¿t put this on my list of favorites, I still look forward to reading other works by Selby.

I lived not far from where much of the action of this novel took place. And have had first hand experience of the kind of characters that are found here in this remarkable piece of writing. (One of the characters was based upon my landlord at the time). I was born and raised in Brooklyn and can personally testify that what you will read in these pages are as true to life back then as you'll find in any piece of American literature. Herbert Selby Jr. has given us a savage glimpse into a world possessed by demons in human form. It is at times raw and heartless, but it is as I've already stated true to life.

A must read for anyone who wants to know what the world looked like back then through the eyes of this great writer!

Last Exit to Brooklyn, Selby's full-length literary debut, is structured more like a collection of stories than a novel. It consists of several episodes that involve completely different characters, have nothing to do with each other, and are structured pretty much the same way - a brief one-page exposition, followed by a buildup of violence all the way to some kind of unspeakably terrifying crescendo whose onset and cessation resolves absolutely no conflict but merely serves to mercilessly cut off the narrative. The last chapter is a series of short, disconnected vignettes that take place in one apartment complex; though they aren't as frightening, the events depicted in them are so uniformly grotesque as to be even more hopeless, even if they're completely banal. For instance, Selby's Naturalistic depiction of the time-honoured pastime of picking one's nose while gossiping is liable to turn one's stomach inside out. You can imagine, based on this example, that Last Exit to Brooklyn is not the most accessible (or even readable) book ever written.

Selby's own voice is not present in the writing; for the most part, the author functions only as a dispassionate chronicler of events that, for the most part, are all completely believable. There are no asides, no motivations, no interpretations - what one sees is very much what one gets, and so one is forced to confront what one sees. It isn't very pretty. However relentless his 1979 masterpiece Requiem for a Dream is, it's much more readable than Last Exit to Brooklyn, mainly because it at least features a "Dream" of some kind. The hapless characters of Last Exit to Brooklyn, however, have no dreams (unless, like Harry Black's, they're about evisceration). Selby himself once characterized this book as an attempt to describe "a world without love," and I think that this appraisal is absolutely accurate. Even the "love" felt by "Georgette" in the first big episode of the book (following a brief introduction that serves to establish what kind of world this is) is a grotesque parody of same. There is no human interaction in this book that does not feature some sort of casual brutality - even the striking workers, who are supposed to stand together in solidarity, in fact have no solidarity or togetherness whatsoever. This lack of love extends to every single member of society - the union leaders and the corporate officials are equally corrupt, the homosexual men and heterosexual women equally selfish, the police and the thugs equally violent, the black people and the white people equally isolated, and no one seems to ever sleep well. Sex is not only just another instrument of violence, it's almost always the instrument of choice. And while people who do bad things very often do get their comeuppance (in truly horrible ways - the robber/prostitute is raped to death, the closet homosexual beaten beyond recognition, et cetera), there is no sense of justice served since everyone is guilty.

Why read it, then? Well, Selby does harbour compassion towards these so-called human beings, but that's more visible in his later books; here, his own choice to recede into the shadows doesn't really show it. Only in the last chapter is it somewhat visible, when he describes a doddering old widow who wonders why no one seems to smile and who is probably a precursor to Sara Goldfarb in Requiem for a Dream. Still, his silence must not be confused with approval, since not only does he not sneer in the book, but his silence seems due to his being overwhelmed by grief. Another reason is that it, assuming the mantle of Naturalism, claims to depict a kind of truth - people can argue about how true it is, but they owe it to themselves to learn it first. But then again, one might quite legitimately ask if there is any value to a truth that is so grimly non-human. Third, one might want to appreciate this book simply based on the writing, and the writing is powerful indeed, but hardly refined enough to place Selby among the stylistic masters. In the end, what it comes down is this: if outright war between reader and writer is what you like, you'll never find a better book; otherwise, you'll have a hard time getting through it once. Also, in either case I would advise you not to eat before reading it.

If you like requiem for a dream the movie or the novel this book should be right up your alley. Simillar to Ellis' nove "The Informers" this novel is told through the eyes of several differant narratives and characters. Its a very moveing novel that shows the desperation of the human soul in a setting that couldnt be more dark than Brooklyn. Like "Requiem for a Dream" once the characters seem like they are at their highest they are quickly brought back to reality, realities that couldnt be any more devestating. The individual stories work well as a whole novel where the story isnt the driving factor, its the observation of the big city and the lives lived their. Totally disturbing and as dark as any writer has ever wanted to get; Selby's first novel "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is a wonderful piece of work and lays the ground work that was later put in full focus with works such as "The Demon"

Beautifully tragic and dark this novel will aim to please. Selby IS A GENIUS, take a look inside.

Do not read this book because you liked Requiem for a Dream the movie. It is totally dissimilar. For that matter, don't read this book if you like a novel to have a plot. Last Exit to Brooklyn is made up of several unrelated stories that constantly switch back and forth throughout the book. The result is that you find yourself no more involved on the last few pages than you were on the first few. The stories go nowhere and could just as easily been arranged in a different order. Specifically, the stories are comprised of transexual and homosexual activities, drug use, spousal abuse, and child abuse. None of the characters are likeable. If you're looking for something contemporary, try anything by Chuck Palahniuk instead.