Last Exit to Brooklyn is an incredible book – less a piece of writing and more a howl of pain – albeit one that is also an incredibly difficult read, due to the bleak and brutal depiction of life within its pages. While it’s definitely a 5 star book, it’s not one that I can imagine rereading much without completely losing what’s left of my faith in humanity.
Introducing us to some of the denizens of a poor neighbourhood in Brooklyn, we take a peek into the lives of the assorted thugs, prostitutes, ne’erdowells, and people just trying to get by in the neighbourhood as they all reach for their own versions of what passes for happiness – mostly a few dollars, a bottle of drink, a piece of ass, delivering a vicious beating, or getting one over on someone else. No-one really seems to have any compassion or empathy for others – in fact, aside from a couple of notable instances, you can virtually feel their contempt for everyone else dripping off the page – but Selby’s writing style, particularly with its unusual approach to dialogue, makes certain that there is real life pulsating within the pages. Not a life I’d want to live, by any stretch of the imagination, but a life I have indeed been familiar with in the past (my old neighbours, who weren’t awake if they weren’t horrifically drunk and beating chunks out of one another, would have fit right into this neighbourhood).
I’ve heard much about the charges of obscenity that were levelled at this book on publication, and I can certainly see why some people may not want to read it, or would find it disgusting when they did (the first brutal beating, encountered within the first page or so, made me feel ill, as did many others). Selby writes with understanding and without judgement, so there’s nothing in there guiding its audience as to how we’re supposed to feel about its characters and their morality, which is where I reckon people start having issues. It seems that we’ll happily consume any amount of sex and violence in our entertainment as long as it’s made pretty for us, only becoming a problem when it starts showing us things about ourselves that we’d really rather not see.
But that’s why books like this are important. How better for someone like me to understand lives unlike my own, instead of simply judging them? I’m glad to have read Last Exit to Brooklyn, as it truly is a fantastic piece of writing. But, much like Requiem for a Dream (whose excellent movie adaptation first put Selby on my radar), I won’t be hurrying back to experience it all over again.