Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr. – Reviewed by Guy Portman
This inter-related collection of six stories are set in 1950s Brooklyn, New York. One revolves around a Benzedrine-scoffing transvestite’s unreciprocated love for a hoodlum. The protagonist of another is a callous, heavy-drinking prostitute, hellbent on a road to self-destruction. Taking centre stage in the fifth story is Harry, an unlikeable, beer-guzzling strike leader with a secret. The final part is devoted to the inhabitants of a public housing development, all of whom lead seedy and/or unsatisfactory existences.
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a controversial and ground-breaking transgressive work that was banned by British courts in 1967. Its mostly squalid characters have a proclivity for crime, heavy-drinking, drug-taking and sexual excess.
The visceral and often frenetic prose is largely devoid of grammatical conventions. Examples of this is the frequent omission of punctuation, including the universal exclusion of quotation marks. In the case of one argumentative couple, all words associated with them are presented in capital letters. These methods might appear ungainly, but they are undeniably effective in conveying the narrative’s unrelentingly ugly and gritty nature.
The dark themes and memorable characters appealed to this avid reader of Transgressive Fiction. He looks forward to reading more books by Hubert Selby Jr.
