Last Exit to Brooklyn (36 page)

A few weeks, or months, after starting to write, I had to go back to work, so I wrote at night for as long as I could. I would come home and take off my suit and tie, try to act like a husband and father for a while, then go to the typewriter and be a writer. It was impossible, but I guess the only way we can transcend the human limitations we establish is by being in an inhuman situation and are forced to exceed ourselves. There were times when I would sit there for a couple of hours and get one or two words. The end of ‘The Queen Is Dead’ was like this. Because Georgie was dying of an OD I initially thought I would have to be under the influence of some drug to do it. I took some Demerol I had for pain, but it didnt work. Next I tried sipping beer, but that was a failure. So I just sat there and did it one word at a time. It took a very long time to write the last couple of pages of that story.

Actually Georgies death was responsible for my writing
Last Exit
. I had written the first part of ‘The Queen Is Dead,’ the part up to where he gets stabbed in the leg and they take him home. It was called ‘Loves Labors Lost.’ About a year and a half later I found out that Georgie had been found dead in the street, the gutter, of an OD, and it moved me very much. He was probably still in his teens when he died, or not much older. Somehow it just didnt seem right for a life, any life, to be dismissed like that, so I felt I had to honor his life by
completing his story, he deserved no less than that. Certainly not romanticize or sentimentalize it, but to allow him to live it as he lived it. With the completion of his story the book started to take shape.

I always liked Georgie, and in retrospect (which is the only way I know anything), I can see why. I always felt alienated, apart from, separated, on the outside looking in, never belonging and trying desperately to be a part of something. Obviously Georgie felt the same way. A teenage, screaming, hysterical, drag queen, living near the waterfront in Brooklyn, padded T-shirts and glitter on his eyes, in the late 40s and early 50s. This is alienation. Today I see that I identified with his sense of alienation and so, in a way, writting his story I was writing my story.

In my need to put the reader through an emotional experience I obviously had to experience the feelings, the emotions, I was attempting to project. This really took its toll. I was new at this and didn’t know how to do it without falling apart. Also, it would take me so long to finish a piece I spent a long time ‘emotionally involved’ with the people. When I finally finished ‘Tralala’ I was in bed for 2 weeks. The same with Georgie, and the others, until I learned how to write, and not be devastated by my peoples pain.

When I was writing
Last Exit
I was only aware of the rage and anger within me. I see, now, how necessary that was. I was attempting to do the impossible (just the act of writing was impossible, no less to accomplish what I was attempting), and so I needed that energy, that madness, to keep going on. During this time I was working full time, supporting 3, then 4, of us on $60 and $70 a week. I had great difficulty breathing, and the medication I was taking for that added a horrifying dimension to my madness, for me and my family. I recently found out that the word ‘violent’ comes from a Latin word that means ‘Life Force,’ so I can see how the anger was what was keeping me alive, it animated my Life Force.

Twenty-five years after finishing
Last Exit
a movie was made from the book, and I was involved and on the set every day. It was then I started to see how I really felt about these people. We were screening the dailies of Harry/s crucifixion and when we were finished, and the lights went on, Uli, the director, asked me what I thought. It was just
he, myself, Bernd, the producer, and Desmond, the screenwriter. I started to answer him and I ended up crying and sobbing so intensely I could not speak for many minutes. I was totally shattered. I remember so clearly hearing myself say, That poor son of a bitch, he only wanted to be happy. My involvement with the film made it possible for me to see how much I love these people.

In looking back I can see where the seeds for writing may have been planted. My mother was an avid reader. My father used to tell stories of when he was a merchant seaman during the 20s. I went to sea when I was a kid, like him, sailed in the Black Gang, like him and started reading in the hospital. This background could also lead to being an accountant. I/ll let the shrinks and psychobiographers, if any, play around with these things. For me the first step in uncovering the love, and the writer, within me happened in the hospital when I was about 19 years old. I was asked to write a letter to the family of a young Greek boy who died. I wrote about this in an unpublished story called ‘Lost & Found.’ I did not know how to write a letter, but said yes, and wrote it. The family lived in Egypt, but in time, a relatively short time, they replied and thanked me for the letter, saying it brought them much joy. Today I believe that was where the writing started, though it was another 10 years before I sat in front of that typewriter.

One of the major things I had to learn was how to allow the writer to take over. I guess I thought writing took place in the head. Of course the mind is important for many things, but ultimately I have to get out of the way and allow the writer within me, that my thinking gives the information to, to take over. I must learn to trust it and surrender to it and not encumber it with my ideas, opinions or desires, other than the desire to write the very best story I can write.

There is always so much in a work that we are unaware of having put there. I learned very early to re-read my work and look for these elements. The first thing I noticed, after having written a couple of stories, is that the people were having troubles not because they were illegal, or immoral from some one elses POV, but because they lost control, and then I started using this consciously in my work. Also its obvious to me that they were really unaware of themselves and
what they were doing and the possible results for, and to, themselves.

It seems to me that when these elements, known and unknown, conscious and unconscious, mesh perfectly an overtone is produced, a synchronicity created, that sings off the page and becomes a ‘work of art’ rather than simply ‘authorship.’

Often I am asked which of my books is my favorite, my answer is, none. However, there is one aspect of
The Room
I love: I can see so clearly that in writing
Last Exit
I truly did learn how to write. Today I am able to simply accept the fact that I am, indeed, a good writer. I have contributed something of value to this life.

One of the great advantages I had was living in NYC during the 50s and early 60s. Everything was happening there then. It had been the ‘Art Capital’ of the world since the end of the war. A bunch of us writers, painters, poets, musicians, hustlers, hangers-on would hang out at Amiri Baraka’s (LeRoi Jones then) on the week ends. Anyone from Edward Dahlberg to Cecil Taylor might be there. Its not so much that we discussed ‘Art,’ which we sometimes did, it was the joy and stimulation of being with your peers. For me it was extraordinary because most of these people had been involved in their art for many, many years, and I, as a newcomer, was deriving the benefit of their experience. We talked mostly about sports, movies, women, broken romances and hearts, gossiped, ranted, raved, but everyone could tell a good story, always putting a new skin on it. Hearing someone describe a favorite scene from a film was better than seeing it. For me it was inspiring and Ive come to believe that that is one, if not the, most important things we can do for each other, getting us
in spirit
, awakening the gift of God within us.

I have always thought of Gil Sorrentino as
THE
man of letters of my generation. He has the remarkable ability to read your work from your POV. He and I would go over everything I wrote, especially in the first few years. It seems there were times when we would spend an hour discussing one word. He was absolutely invaluable to me in helping me learn how to write. Because of these detailed discussions, by the time I had finished
Last Exit
I knew why every word was where it was, every comma, every space, every dropped line. Each and every word was engraved in stone, I struggled so hard to find exactly the
right one. Yet I also had to make the book sound as if it came off the top of my head, as if no thought had gone into it. This was essential to achieve the desired effect of being true to the people, and make all elements organic. I believe I have succeeded because some critics say Im not a writer, just a typist. Of course they are unaware of it, but thats the greatest compliment they could pay me.

In the process of trying to do something with my life before I died, I have abandoned myself to my art. This has filled my life with a purpose I could not have imagined. The process has been extremely painful, but such is the nature of life. I have given up everything to be a writer, but it has been worth it. Today I have a sense of dignity and integrity that I cherish, and I can look back on my life, without any regrets, and say, ‘Right on Cubby, you’ve done a good job. You may have felt like the Alchemists Crucible, but the lead and dross have been burned away and been transformed into gold.’ My life is full and rich and I know I have accomplished much with it. If I die today I know I shall leave a valuable legacy, thanks to my commitment, and the love of friends. I have experienced, in all my Being, the fulfillment of the Vision in my Heart.

Hubert Selby Jr.
June 1994

Foreword to the Post-Trial Edition

Last Exit to Brooklyn
was first published in Great Britain on 24th January 1966. It had already been available in an American edition for over a year and had had exceptionally favourable reviews in the USA. It had come to the notice of Marion Boyars who, with the enthusiastic approval of John Calder, negotiated the British rights and acquired it for publication by Calder & Boyars. They both felt that it was a book which a serious publisher could not afford to ignore.

Because
Last Exit to Brooklyn
contains controversial material – many descriptions of violence, detailed descriptions of the activities of homosexuals, precise descriptions of the sexual act and of what is going on in the minds of the characters at such times – it was decided to submit the book to the Director of Public Prosecutions in advance, so that if objection was taken to the book, no bookseller would be involved. The Director’s office gave an inconclusive reply, which ended with the words: ‘If you find – as I am afraid you will – that this is a most unhelpful letter, it is not because I wish to be unhelpful, but because I get no help from the Acts.’ The book was accordingly published and received a highly favourable press which, while making it clear that this was not a suitable present for Aunt Edna, established the book as a possible masterpiece, certainly a remarkable first novel by a writer with a Zolaesque passion for truth and morality – not the morality that consists of not noticing or pretending not to notice the unpleasant side of life, but a morality that sees evil where it exists, seeks out the causes of that evil, and commits itself to eradicating those causes. Anthony Burgess said in
The Listener
: ‘No book could well be less obscene … We are spared nothing of the snarls and tribulations of pimps, queens and “hip queers”, but the tone is wholly compassionate although sometimes
whipped by the kinesis of anger.’ Kenneth Allsop in
The Spectator
also emphasized Hubert Selby’s ability to create compassion out of sordidness. He said: ‘Mr Selby’s stream of reality, an urgent ticker-tape from hell, works stunningly … The taste of this stew of callousness, savagery and hatred, and the pitiful, blind gropings towards substitute tenderness, is one of compassion for the subterraneans and rage at the averted eye.’

On 2nd March 1966 Sir Charles Taylor MP first asked in the House of Commons for an unnamed book to be prosecuted. The book had, as the publishers were later to learn, been brought to his attention by Richard Blackwell, a director of the Oxford bookselling firm, whose father, Sir Basil Blackwell, was to be a key prosecution witness in both trials. It was soon an open secret that the unnamed book was
Last Exit to Brooklyn
. Several times, with the backing of some thirty-odd MPs of similar views, Sir Charles Taylor pressed the Attorney-General to order that proceedings be taken, while a similar number of Members, of more liberal views, opposed the request. Finally Mr Tom Driberg told the House – and the world – the name of the book. The Attorney-General at last broke the deadlock by announcing in the House that the Director of Public Prosecutions had taken advice from a professor of literature, who had given a high opinion of the book, and from a psychiatrist, and that both had advised against prosecution.

Then Sir Cyril Black, MP for Wimbledon, a highly successful property dealer, lay preacher and campaigner against liberal causes, brought a private prosecution against the book. The case was heard by Mr Leo Gradwell at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court who, after hearing witnesses for both sides, found the book obscene. The witnesses for the prosecution were H. Montgomery Hyde, Robert Pitman, Sir Basil Blackwell, Dr Ernest Claxton, Robert Maxwell MP, Professor George Catlin, Fielden Hughes and David Holloway. The defence witnesses were Marion Boyars, Dr Lindsay Neustatter, Edward Lucie-Smith, Dr Lionel Tiger, Bryan Magee, Robert Baldick, Goronwy Rees, Timothy O’Keefe, Anthony Burgess, Peter Fryer and John Calder.

Calder & Boyars then wrote to the Director of Public Prosecutions advising him that, notwithstanding the magistrates’ court decision, which was not binding outside the district in which the court was situated, they intended to continue to publish the book. They
had now sold two impressions totalling 13,872 copies and were about to order a reprint when the Director of Public Prosecutions, reversing his earlier decision, informed the company of his intention to prosecute under Section 2 of the Obscene Publications Act (a criminal charge), which entitled the defendants to be heard by a judge and jury. The previous conviction had been under Section 3 and the only penalty the seizure and destruction of three copies of the book.