Understanding Hubert Selby Jr.

The unique narrative perspective of an eloquent advocate of the urban outcast. Since the publication in 1964 of his novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, which quickly achieved the status of a cult classic, Hubert Selby Jr., has held a place as one of the foremost exponents of American underground literature. His work has yet to receive extensive critical attention, in part because of its deliberately shocking subject matter and its resistance to precise classification. In Understanding Hubert Selby Jr., James R. Giles examines the writer’s four novels and one collection of short stories to make the case that the full complexity of his fiction has not previously been understood. Giles contends that Selby’s writings, which are usually labeled as either “naturalistic” or “surrealistic”, represent an innovative merger of both narrative modes.