Hubert Selby Jr.

Hubert Selby, Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was one of America's most acclaimed postwar writers. His work ranks as some of the most powerful literature written by an American author in the twentieth century.{{ref|nyt}} His best known work, Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) is recognized today as a classic.

One Way

In 1949, Selby married for the first time. But after the marines, with no qualifications, no work experience and bad health, he had trouble landing a job. He spent most of the time at home, raising his daughter while his wife worked in a department store.

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For the next ten years, Selby remained bed-ridden and frequently hospitalized with a variety of lung related ailments. The doctors continued to issue bleak prognosis on Selby's life, telling him repeatedly that he could not possibly survive, because he "just didn't have enough lung capacity". But Selby refused to give up. A childhood friend, writer Gilbert Sorrentino{{ref|sorrentino}}, encouraged Selby to spend his time on fiction. Unable to make a living due to health concerns, Selby decided, "I know the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer."

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On discovering the incentive for being a writer, Selby writes:

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I was sitting at home and had a profound experience. I experienced, in all of my Being, that someday I was going to die, and it wouldn't be like it had been happening, almost dying but somehow staying alive, but I would just die! And two things would happen right before I died: I would regret my entire life; I would want to live it over again. This terrified me. The thought that I would live my entire life, look at it and realize I blew it forced me to do something with my life.

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With no formal training, Selby used his raw language to narrate the bleak and violent world that was part of his youth. He stated "I write, in part, by ear. I hear, as well as feel and see, what I am writing. I have always been enamoured with the music of the speech in New York."http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,421047,00.html In style, Selby also differed from other writers. He did not care about proper grammar, punctuation, or diction. He indented his paragraphs with alternating lengths, often by simply dropping down one line when he was finished with a paragraph. Like Jack Kerouac's "spontaneous prose", Selby's writing was often done in a fast, stream of consciousness style, and to facilitate this he replaced his apostrophes with forward slashes "/" due to their closer proximity on his typewriter, thus allowing uninterrupted typing. He did not use quotation marks, and dialogue may consist of a complete paragraph, with no denotion among alternating speakers. His prose was stripped down, bare, and blunt.

Related Topics:
Grammar - Punctuation - Diction - Indent - Paragraph - Jack Kerouac - Stream of consciousness - Apostrophe - Quotation marks

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His experience with longshoremen, homeless, thugs, pimps, transvestites, prostitutes, queers, addicts and the overall poverty-stricken community, is best expressed in his most praised work, Last Exit to Brooklyn.

Related Topics:
Longshoremen - Homeless - Thugs - Pimp - Transvestite - Prostitute - Queer - Addict - Last Exit to Brooklyn

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