Last Exit to Brooklyn
Encyclopedia
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a 1964 novel
by American
author Hubert Selby, Jr.
The novel has become a cult classic
because of its harsh, uncompromising look at lower class
Brooklyn
in the 1950s and for its brusque, everyman
style of prose.
Although critics and fellow writers praised the book on its release, Last Exit to Brooklyn caused much controversy due to its frank portrayals of taboo
subjects, such as drug
use, street violence
, gang rape, homosexuality
, transvestism
and domestic violence
. It was the subject of an important obscenity
trial in the United Kingdom
and was banned in Italy
.
.
. Selby wrote most of the prose as if it were a story told from one friend to another at a bar rather than a novel, using coarse and casual language. He used slang
-like conjunctions
of words, such as tahell for "to hell" and yago for "you go." The paragraphs were often written in a stream of consciousness style with many parentheses and fragments. Selby often indented new paragraphs to the middle or end of the line.
Also, Selby did not use quotation mark
s to distinguish dialogue but instead merely blended it into the text. He used a slash
instead of an apostrophe mark for contractions
and did not use an apostrophe at all for possessives
.
The following is a typical example of the novel’s style:
Selby wrote about people he had met around Brooklyn while working as a copywriter and general laborer. The piece was published in three literary magazines in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Tralala also appeared in The Provincetown Review in 1961 and drew some intense criticism.
The pieces later evolved into the full-length book, which was published in 1964 by Grove Press
, which had previously published such controversial authors as William S. Burroughs
and Henry Miller
.
Critics praised and censured the publication. Poet
Allen Ginsberg
said that it will "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years."
edition were acquired by Marion Boyars and John Calder
and the novel ended up in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions
. The manuscript
was published in January 1966, received positive reviews and sold almost 14,000 copies. The director of Blackwell's
bookshop in Oxford
complained to the DPP about the detailed depictions of brutality and cruelty in the book but the DPP did not pursue the allegations.
Sir
Cyril Black
, the then Conservative
Member of Parliament
for Wimbledon
, initiated a private prosecution
of the novel before Marlborough Street
Magistrates' Court
. The public prosecutor
brought an action under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act
. During the hearing the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate ordered that all copies of the book within the Magistrate's Court be seized. Not a single bookseller possessed a copy, but the publishing offices of Calder and Boyars, within the Bow Street Magistrate's jurisdiction, were discovered to be in possession of three copies. The books were duly seized, and Mrs. Boyars was summonsed to show cause why "the said articles" should not be forfeited. Expert witnesses spoke, "unprecedentedly," for the prosecution: they included the publishers Sir Basil Blackwell
and Robert Maxwell
. On the defense side were the scholars Al Alvarez II
, and professor Frank Kermode
, who had previously compared the work to Dickens.
The order had no effect beyond the borders of the Marlborough Street Court — the London neighborhood of Soho
. At the hearing Calder declared that the book would continue to be published and would be sold everywhere else outside of that jurisdiction. In response the prosecutor brought criminal charges under Section 2 of the Act, which entitled the defendants to trial by jury under Section 4.
The jury was all male. Judge
Graham Rigers directed that the women "might be embarrassed at having to read a book which dealt with homosexuality, prostitution, drug-taking and sexual perversion." The trial lasted nine days; on November 23 the jury returned a guilty verdict.
In 1968, an appeal
issued by the lawyer and writer John Mortimer
resulted in a judgment by Mr Justice Lane
which reversed the ruling. The case marked a turning point in British censorship
laws. By that time, the novel had sold over 33,000 hardback and 500,000 paperback copies in the United States
.
, director Uli Edel
helmed a film adaptation
of the novel, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh
, Stephen Baldwin
, Stephen Lang
, Burt Young
, and Jerry Orbach
.
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Hubert Selby, Jr.
Hubert Selby, Jr.
Hubert "Cubby" Selby, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His best-known novels are Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream . Both novels were later adapted into films within his lifetime....
The novel has become a cult classic
Cult Classic
Cult Classic is a Blue Öyster Cult studio recording released in 1994, containing remakes of many of the band's previous hits.-Track listing:# " The Reaper" - 5:05# "E.T.I...
because of its harsh, uncompromising look at lower class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
in the 1950s and for its brusque, everyman
Everyman
In literature and drama, the term everyman has come to mean an ordinary individual, with whom the audience or reader is supposed to be able to identify easily, and who is often placed in extraordinary circumstances...
style of prose.
Although critics and fellow writers praised the book on its release, Last Exit to Brooklyn caused much controversy due to its frank portrayals of taboo
Taboo
A taboo is a strong social prohibition relating to any area of human activity or social custom that is sacred and or forbidden based on moral judgment, religious beliefs and or scientific consensus. Breaking the taboo is usually considered objectionable or abhorrent by society...
subjects, such as drug
Psychoactive drug
A psychoactive drug, psychopharmaceutical, or psychotropic is a chemical substance that crosses the blood–brain barrier and acts primarily upon the central nervous system where it affects brain function, resulting in changes in perception, mood, consciousness, cognition, and behavior...
use, street violence
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
, gang rape, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, transvestism
Transvestism
Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations. -History:Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s,...
and domestic violence
Domestic violence
Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
. It was the subject of an important obscenity
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
trial in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and was banned in Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
.
Synopsis
Last Exit to Brooklyn is divided into six parts that can, more or less, be read separately. Each part is prefaced with a passage from the BibleBible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
.
- Another Day, Another Dollar: A gang of young Brooklyn hoodlums hang around an all-night cafe and get into a vicious fight with a group of US Army soldiers on leave.
- The Queen Is Dead: Georgette, a transvestite hooker, is thrown out of the family home by her brother and tries to attract the attention of a hoodlum named Vinnie at a benzedrineBenzedrineBenzedrine is the trade name of the racemic mixture of amphetamine . It was marketed under this brandname in the USA by Smith, Kline & French in the form of inhalers, starting in 1928...
-driven party. - And Baby Makes Three: An alcoholicAlcoholismAlcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
father tries to keep good spirits and maintain his family’s marriage traditions after his daughter becomes pregnant and then marries a motorcycleMotorcycleA motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
mechanic. - Tralala: The title character of an earlier Selby short story, she is a young Brooklyn prostitute who makes a living propositioning sailors in bars and stealing their money. In perhaps the novel’s most notorious scene, she is gang-raped after a night of heavy drinking.
- Strike: Harry, a machinist in a factory, becomes a local official in the union. A closetedThe ClosetThe Closet may refer to:* The Closet , Chinese film* The Closet , French film* The closet, referring to undisclosed homosexuality- See also :* Closet* Closet * In the closet...
homosexual, he abusesDomestic violenceDomestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
his wife and gets in fights to convince himself that he is a man. He gains a temporary status and importance during a long strike, and uses the union's money to entertain the young street punks and buy the company of drag queens. - Landsend: Described as a “codaCoda (music)Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...
” for the book, this section presents the intertwined, yet ordinary day of numerous denizens in a housing projectPublic housingPublic housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...
.
Style
Last Exit to Brooklyn was written in an idiosyncratic style that ignores most conventions of grammarGrammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
. Selby wrote most of the prose as if it were a story told from one friend to another at a bar rather than a novel, using coarse and casual language. He used slang
Slang
Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker's language or dialect but are considered more acceptable when used socially. Slang is often to be found in areas of the lexicon that refer to things considered taboo...
-like conjunctions
Conjunctions
Conjunctions, is a biannual American literary journal based at Bard College. It was founded in 1981 and is currently edited by Bradford Morrow....
of words, such as tahell for "to hell" and yago for "you go." The paragraphs were often written in a stream of consciousness style with many parentheses and fragments. Selby often indented new paragraphs to the middle or end of the line.
Also, Selby did not use quotation mark
Quotation mark
Quotation marks or inverted commas are punctuation marks at the beginning and end of a quotation, direct speech, literal title or name. Quotation marks can also be used to indicate a different meaning of a word or phrase than the one typically associated with it and are often used to express irony...
s to distinguish dialogue but instead merely blended it into the text. He used a slash
Slash (punctuation)
The slash is a sign used as a punctuation mark and for various other purposes. It is now often called a forward slash , and many other alternative names.-History:...
instead of an apostrophe mark for contractions
Contraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
and did not use an apostrophe at all for possessives
Possession (linguistics)
Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which possesses the referent of the other ....
.
The following is a typical example of the novel’s style:
Publication history
Last Exit to Brooklyn started as The Queen is Dead, one of several short storiesShort story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
Selby wrote about people he had met around Brooklyn while working as a copywriter and general laborer. The piece was published in three literary magazines in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Tralala also appeared in The Provincetown Review in 1961 and drew some intense criticism.
The pieces later evolved into the full-length book, which was published in 1964 by Grove Press
Grove Press
Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1951. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United States. The Atlantic Monthly Press, under the aegis of its...
, which had previously published such controversial authors as William S. Burroughs
William S. Burroughs
William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...
and Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
.
Critics praised and censured the publication. Poet
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
said that it will "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years."
Trial
The rights for the BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
edition were acquired by Marion Boyars and John Calder
John Calder
John Mackenzie Calder is a Canadian and Scottish publisher who founded Calder Publishing in 1949.-Biography:John Calder was a friend of Samuel Beckett, becoming the main publisher of his prose-texts in Britain after the success of Waiting for Godot on the London stage in 1955-56...
and the novel ended up in the hands of the Director of Public Prosecutions
Director of Public Prosecutions
The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world...
. The manuscript
Manuscript
A manuscript or handwrite is written information that has been manually created by someone or some people, such as a hand-written letter, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other way...
was published in January 1966, received positive reviews and sold almost 14,000 copies. The director of Blackwell's
Blackwell's
Blackwell UK Ltd is a national chain of bookshops, online retail, mail order and library supply services in the United Kingdom, which has an annual turnover of £74 million...
bookshop in Oxford
Oxford
The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...
complained to the DPP about the detailed depictions of brutality and cruelty in the book but the DPP did not pursue the allegations.
Sir
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
Cyril Black
Cyril Black
Sir Cyril Wilson Black was a British Conservative politician. He was Member of Parliament for Wimbledon from 1950 to his retirement at the 1970 general election.-Birth and education:...
, the then Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
Member of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for Wimbledon
Wimbledon (UK Parliament constituency)
Wimbledon is one of two parliamentary constituencies in the London Borough of Merton in south-west London. It elects one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, by the first-past-the-post voting system....
, initiated a private prosecution
Private prosecution
A private prosecution is a criminal proceeding initiated by an individual or private organisation instead of by a public prosecutor who represents the state...
of the novel before Marlborough Street
Great Marlborough Street
Great Marlborough Street runs west to east through the western part of Soho in London. At its western end it joins Regent Street. Streets intersecting, or meeting with, Great Marlborough Street are, from west to east, Kingly Street, Argyll Street, Carnaby Street, and Poland Street...
Magistrates' Court
Magistrates' Court
A magistrates' court or court of petty sessions, formerly known as a police court, is the lowest level of court in England and Wales and many other common law jurisdictions...
. The public prosecutor
Prosecutor
The prosecutor is the chief legal representative of the prosecution in countries with either the common law adversarial system, or the civil law inquisitorial system...
brought an action under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act
Obscene Publications Act
Since 1857, a series of obscenity laws known as the Obscene Publications Acts have governed what can be published in England and Wales. The classic definition of criminal obscenity is if it "tends to deprave and corrupt," stated in 1868 by John Duke Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge.There have been...
. During the hearing the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate ordered that all copies of the book within the Magistrate's Court be seized. Not a single bookseller possessed a copy, but the publishing offices of Calder and Boyars, within the Bow Street Magistrate's jurisdiction, were discovered to be in possession of three copies. The books were duly seized, and Mrs. Boyars was summonsed to show cause why "the said articles" should not be forfeited. Expert witnesses spoke, "unprecedentedly," for the prosecution: they included the publishers Sir Basil Blackwell
Basil Blackwell
Sir Basil Blackwell was born Henry Blackwell in Oxford, England. He was the son of the founder of Blackwell's bookshop in Oxford, which went on to become the Blackwell's family publishing and bookshop empire, located on Broad Street in central Oxford...
and Robert Maxwell
Robert Maxwell
Ian Robert Maxwell MC was a Czechoslovakian-born British media proprietor and former Member of Parliament , who rose from poverty to build an extensive publishing empire...
. On the defense side were the scholars Al Alvarez II
Al Alvarez
Al Alvarez is an English poet, writer and critic who publishes under the name A. Alvarez and Al Alvarez....
, and professor Frank Kermode
Frank Kermode
Sir John Frank Kermode was a highly regarded British literary critic best known for his seminal critical work The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction, published in 1967 ....
, who had previously compared the work to Dickens.
The order had no effect beyond the borders of the Marlborough Street Court — the London neighborhood of Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
. At the hearing Calder declared that the book would continue to be published and would be sold everywhere else outside of that jurisdiction. In response the prosecutor brought criminal charges under Section 2 of the Act, which entitled the defendants to trial by jury under Section 4.
The jury was all male. Judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
Graham Rigers directed that the women "might be embarrassed at having to read a book which dealt with homosexuality, prostitution, drug-taking and sexual perversion." The trial lasted nine days; on November 23 the jury returned a guilty verdict.
In 1968, an appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
issued by the lawyer and writer John Mortimer
John Mortimer
Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...
resulted in a judgment by Mr Justice Lane
Geoffrey Lane, Baron Lane
Geoffrey Dawson Lane, Baron Lane AFC PC QC was a British Judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1980 to 1992. The later part of his term was marred by a succession of disputed convictions...
which reversed the ruling. The case marked a turning point in British censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
laws. By that time, the novel had sold over 33,000 hardback and 500,000 paperback copies in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
Film adaptation
In 19891989 in film
-Events:* Batman is released on June 23, and goes on to gross over $410 million worldwide.* Actress Kim Basinger and her brother Mick purchase Braselton, Georgia, for $20 million...
, director Uli Edel
Uli Edel
Uli Edel is a German film director.-Work:After studying theatre science in Munich, he was accepted into Munich Film School alongside Bernd Eichinger. Uli befriended him and they started working together on their exercise movies, sharing a love for the nouvelle vague and Italian neorealism as well...
helmed a film adaptation
Last Exit to Brooklyn (film)
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a 1989 English-language German drama film, directed by Uli Edel, and based on the eponymous novel by Hubert Selby Jr.- Plot :...
of the novel, starring Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh
Jennifer Jason Leigh is an American film and stage actress, best known for her roles in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Single White Female, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Georgia and Short Cuts...
, Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Baldwin
Stephen Andrew Baldwin is an American actor, director, producer and author. One of the Baldwin brothers, he is known for his roles as William F. Cody in the western show The Young Riders and as Stuart in the movie Threesome...
, Stephen Lang
Stephen Lang
Stephen Lang may refer to:* Stephen Lang * Stephen Lang , a fictional character in Marvel Comics* Steven Lang...
, Burt Young
Burt Young
Burt Young is an American actor, painter and author. He is best known for his Academy Award-nominated role as Sylvester Stallone's brother-in-law and friend Paulie in the Rocky film series.-Personal life:...
, and Jerry Orbach
Jerry Orbach
Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law & Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. As well, Orbach was a noted musical theatre star...
.