{{Short description|American writer}} {{More citations needed|date=December 2021}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2023}} {{Infobox writer | name = Hubert Selby Jr. | image = Hubert_Selby_Jr.jpg | caption = | birth_name = | birth_date = July 23, 1928 | birth_place = Brooklyn, New York, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and given age|2004|4|26|75}} | death_place = Highland Park, Los Angeles, California, U.S. | occupation = {{flatlist| * Novelist * poet * screenwriter }} | period = | genre = | subject = | movement = Modernism, Beat Generation | notableworks = ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'', ''The Room'', ''Requiem for a Dream'' | spouse = | partner = | children = | relatives = | signature = }}
'''Hubert''' "'''Cubby'''" '''Selby Jr.'''<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.marionboyars.co.uk/AUTHORS/Hubert%20Selby%20Jr.html|title=Hubert Selby Jr|accessdate=14 April 2023}}</ref> (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American novelist. Two of his books, ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964) and ''Requiem for a Dream'' (1978), were adapted into films, both of which he appeared in.
With no formal writing training, Selby used a raw language to depict the bleak and violent world that encompassed his youth, which would go on to set the stage for his early life. His first novel was prosecuted for obscenity in the United Kingdom and banned in Italy, which prompted defenses from many leading authors such as Anthony Burgess. He has influenced multiple generations of writers. For more than 20 years, he taught creative writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he lived full-time after 1983.
==Biography==
===Early life and education=== Hubert Selby was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Adalin and Hubert Selby Sr., a merchant seaman and former coal miner from Kentucky. Selby and his wife Adalin had settled in Bay Ridge. Hubert attended public schools, including the competitive Stuyvesant High School.
Selby Jr. dropped out of school at the age of 15 to work in the city docks before becoming a merchant seaman in 1947.<ref>{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|2137967594}} |title=Selby, Hubert, 1928- |work=ProQuest Author Pages }}</ref>
Having been diagnosed with tuberculosis, he was taken off the ship in Bremen, Germany, and sent back to the United States. For the next three and a half years, Selby was in and out of the U.S. Public Health Hospital (part of a system of hospitals originally established to care for merchant seamen)<ref>{{cite news|title=U.S. Seamen's Hospitals Still Open in Many Cities|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/27/us/us-seamen-s-hospitals-still-open-in-many-cities.html|access-date=14 April 2018|work=New York Times|date=October 27, 1981}}</ref> in New York for treatment.
Selby went through an experimental drug treatment, streptomycin, that later caused some severe complications. During an operation, surgeons removed several of Selby's ribs to reach his lungs.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2004-04-28|title=Hubert Selby Jnr|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/hubert-selby-jnr-549834.html|access-date=2020-09-28|website=The Independent|language=en}}</ref> One of his lungs collapsed, and doctors removed part of the other.
===Becoming a writer===
For the next ten years, Selby was mostly bedridden; he was frequently hospitalized with a variety of lung-related ailments. The doctors offered a bleak prognosis, suggesting he was unlikely to survive long because he "just didn't have enough lung capacity". Gilbert Sorrentino, a childhood friend who had become a writer, encouraged Selby to write fiction. Unable to have regular work because of his health, Selby decided, "I know the alphabet. Maybe I could be a writer."<ref>{{Cite book|title=Last Exit To Brooklyn (Bloomsbury Modern Classics)|last=Selby Jr|first=Hubert|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2000|isbn=0747549923|location=London, UK|pages=vi, introduction to edition by Hubert Selby Jr|quote="As I recall my reasoning at the time, all these years later, I wanted to be a composer but knew I could never go to school long enough to learn how, but I did know the alphabet so I figured I/d be a writer"}}</ref>
He later wrote: <blockquote>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.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hubert Selby Jr, deux ou trois choses |url=http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/021372-000/hubert-selby-jr-2-ou-3-choses |work=Arte.tv |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130811162738/http://www.arte.tv/guide/fr/021372-000/hubert-selby-jr-2-ou-3-choses |archive-date=2013-08-11 }}</ref></blockquote>
Little concerned with proper grammar, punctuation, or diction, Selby used unorthodox techniques in most of his works. He indented his paragraphs with alternating lengths, often by simply dropping down one line when finished with a paragraph. Like Jack Kerouac in his "spontaneous prose", Selby often completed his writing in a fast, stream-of-consciousness style. He substituted slashes for apostrophes so he would not have to hold down the CAPS key on a typewriter.<ref>{{cite news|first=Lisa|last=Nesselson|title=Hubert Selby Jr.: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow|url=https://variety.com/2005/film/reviews/hubert-selby-jr-it-ll-be-better-tomorrow-1200523190/|access-date=31 July 2025|date=September 14, 2005|work=Variety}}</ref>
===Early works=== Selby started working on his first short story, "The Queen Is Dead," in 1958. At the time, he had a succession of day jobs, but he wrote every night. During the day, he worked as a clerk, insurance adjuster, and freelance copywriter.<ref name="times">{{Cite news|date=28 April 2004|title=Hubert Selby Jr|agency=Author whose Last Exit to Brooklyn compassionately observed the horror of life in the underbelly of American cities|work=The Times|url=https://www.thetimes.com/travel/destinations/europe-travel/hubert-selby-jr-tfztfjsrdk3|access-date=1 August 2025}}</ref> The short story developed slowly for the next six years before he published it.
In 1961, his short story "Tralala" was published in the literary journal ''The Provincetown Review''. It also appeared in ''Black Mountain Review'' and ''New Directions''. It portrays the seedy life (ridden with violence, theft and mediocre con-artistry) and the gang rape of a prostitute.<ref name="times"/> The journal editor was arrested for selling pornographic literature to a minor. The journal was used as evidence in an obscenity trial, but the case was later dismissed on appeal.<ref>{{Cite news|last=DePalma|first=Anthony|date=2004-04-27|title=Hubert Selby Jr. Dies at 75; Wrote 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/business/hubert-selby-jr-dies-at-75-wrote-last-exit-to-brooklyn.html|access-date=2020-08-24|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>
On 24 October 1964, Selby married Judith Lumino, but the marriage soon fell apart. As he continued to write, his longtime friend LeRoi Jones (later Amiri Baraka), the poet and playwright, encouraged him to contact Sterling Lord, then Kerouac's agent. Selby combined "Tralala", "The Queen Is Dead" and four other loosely linked short stories as part of his first novel, ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964). The novel was accepted and published by Grove Press, which had already published works by William S. Burroughs. In November 1964, New York Times literary critic Eliot Fremont-Smith described the novel as "a brutal book," concluding that it "is not a book one 'recommends'--except perhaps to writers. From them, those who wish to read it, it deserves attention."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Fremont-Smith|first1=Eliot|title=Beyond Revulsion|work=New York Times|date=November 8, 1964|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/11/08/archives/beyond-revulsion-last-exit-to-brooklyn-by-hubert-selby-jr-304-pp.html|pages=67}}</ref>
''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' was praised by poet Allen Ginsberg who called it "a rusty, hellish bombshell over America" and the rights for a British edition were bought by Marion Boyars and John Calder who published it in 1966. Politician Cyril Black then brought a private prosecution against the novel to the Marlborough Street Magistrates Court. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided to sue the publishers under section 2 of the 1964 Obscene Publications Act.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/apr/28/guardianobituaries.film|last=Homberger|first=Eric|title=Hubert Selby Jr|work=The Guardian|date=28 April 2004|access-date=1 August 2025}}</ref> In 1967, the publishers were tried at the Old Bailey and the jury verdict resulted in the book being banned in Britain. In 1968, the verdict was overturned on appeal when barrister John Mortimer successfully argued that the jury was given insufficient guidance.<ref name="tele">{{cite news|title=Hubert Selby Jr|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1460421/Hubert-Selby-Jr.html|work=The Telegraph|date=28 April 2004|access-date=1 August 2025|archive-url=https://archive.today/20250801234201/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1460421/Hubert-Selby-Jr.html|archive-date=1 August 2025}}</ref>
Although he wrote all his work while sober, Selby continued to battle drug addiction. In 1967 he was arrested for heroin possession and served two months in the Los Angeles County jail. After his release, he moved from New York to Los Angeles to try to escape his addictions and finally kicked the habit. He stayed clean of illicit drugs but continued to battle alcohol abuse for the next two years. Also that year, Selby met his future wife, Suzanne Victoria Shaw, at a bar in West Hollywood. The couple moved in together two days after they met. They married in 1969, after Selby and his second wife, Judith, had finalized their divorce.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hubert Selby Jr (1928-2004)|url=http://authorscalendar.info/selby.htm|access-date=14 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mlaus.org/wp-content/uploads/bp-attachments/6987/mexican-divorce.pdf|title=Copia Certificada De Sentencia De Divorcio, Acta No. 337156 (July 18, 1969)|accessdate=14 April 2023}}</ref> For the next decade, Suzanne and Selby traveled back and forth between their home in Southern California and the East Coast, settling permanently in the Los Angeles area in 1983. They had two children, daughter Rachel and son William.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-apr-28-me-selby28-story.html|last=McLellan|first=Dennis|title=Hubert Selby Jr., 75; Wrote Existential Novels|work=Los Angeles Times|date=28 April 2004|access-date=1 August 2025}}</ref>
===Life after ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''=== In 1971, Selby published his second novel, ''The Room''. It featured a criminally insane man, locked in a room in a prison, who reminisces about his disturbing past. Selby described ''The Room'' as "the most disturbing book ever written."<ref name="tele"/>
Selby continued to write short fiction, as well as screenplays and teleplays at his apartment in West Hollywood. His work was published in many magazines, including ''Black Mountain Review'', ''Evergreen Review'', ''Provincetown Review'', ''Kulchur'', ''New Directions Annual'', ''Yugen'', ''Swank'' and ''Open City''.
In the 1980s, Selby met punk rock singer Henry Rollins, who had long admired the writer's works and publicly championed them.<ref name="Henry and Heidi Podcast">{{cite web|title=Henry and Heidi Podcast|date=July 21, 2015|url=http://henryrollins.com/dispatch/detail/henry_heidi_-_henry_hubert_selby_jr/}}</ref> Rollins helped broaden Selby's readership, and arranged recording sessions and reading tours for Selby. Rollins issued original recordings through his own 2.13.61 publications, and distributed Selby's other works.<ref name="Henry and Heidi Podcast"/>
For the last 20 years of his life, Selby taught creative writing as an adjunct professor in the Master of Professional Writing program at the University of Southern California.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Novelist, Professor Hubert Selby Jr. |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/local/2004/04/28/novelist-professor-hubert-selby-jr/a03c4719-544c-4798-84b2-3e718306e1f8/ |access-date=2024-02-01 |newspaper=Washington Post |language=en-US |issn=0190-8286}}</ref>
A film adaptation of ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'', directed by Uli Edel, was made in 1989. Selby appeared in ''Brooklyn'' in a brief cameo as a taxi driver. ''Requiem for a Dream'' (1978) was adapted as a film of the same name released in 2000. He had a small role as a prison guard who taunts Marlon Wayans’s character, who is forced to perform hard labor while going through heroin withdrawal.<ref name=NYT2>{{cite web|work=The New York Times|title=OSCAR FILMS/ACTORS: An Angry Man and an Underused Woman; Ellen Burstyn Enjoys Her Second Act|first=Rick|last=Lyman|date=March 4, 2001|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/04/movies/oscar-films-actors-angry-man-underused-woman-ellen-burstyn-enjoys-her-second-act.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm}}</ref>
==Death and legacy== Selby spent the last month of his life in and out of the hospital and died at his home in Highland Park, Los Angeles, on April 26, 2004, of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Although he was in pain, he refused morphine on his deathbed.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3665719.stm|title=Author Hubert Selby Jr dies at 75|date=2004-04-28|access-date=2018-03-09}}</ref>
''The New York Times'' published his obituary the day after his death.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/business/hubert-selby-jr-dies-at-75-wrote-last-exit-to-brooklyn.html|date=2004-04-27|work=The New York Times|title=Hubert Selby Jr. Dies at 75; Wrote 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'|first=Anthony|last=DePalma}}</ref> In 1999, a French movie director Ludovic Cantais made a documentary about Hubert Selby Jr, "Hubert Selby Jr, a couple of things" broadcast on many European channels. Selby was the subject of the 2005 documentary, ''Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow''<ref>{{cite web|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/337219/Hubert-Selby-Jr-It-ll-be-Better-Tomorrow/overview|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130921053840/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/337219/Hubert-Selby-Jr-It-ll-be-Better-Tomorrow/overview|url-status=dead|archive-date=2013-09-21|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|author=Mark Deming|date=2013|title=Hubert Selby Jr.: It/ll be Better Tomorrow}}</ref>
==In popular culture== * In 1972, David Bowie said that two novels influenced him greatly: Jack Kerouac's ''On the Road'' and Selby's ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''. He confessed that he had formed a "desperate identification" with the latter novel.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Edwards|first1=Henry|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1973/08/12/archives/who-or-what-is-david-bowie-pop-who-or-what-is-david-bowie.html|title=Who (or What) Is David Bowie?|work=The New York Times|date=August 12, 1973|access-date=August 1, 2025}}</ref> * Selby's first work, "The Queen Is Dead" (appearing as a chapter in ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''), inspired the name of the album by Manchester alternative rock group The Smiths.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Mozipedia: The Encyclopaedia of Morrissey and the Smiths|last=Goddard|first=Simon|publisher=Plume|year=2000|isbn=0452296676|location=Manchester|type=Encyclopedia|quote="here’s also the title itself, from a chapter in Hubert Selby Jr’s 1964 novel Last Exit To Brooklyn, the cause of several obscenity trials upon first publication due to its explicit subject matter. Significantly, Selby Jr’s ‘The Queen Is Dead’ concerns a transsexual named Georgette. Even when Morrissey first sent the album artwork to ROUGH TRADE, he joked that the title referred to ‘the death of a panto queen … yes, it’s autobiographical’."|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/mozipediaencyclo00godd_0}}</ref> * In the book ''Was This Man a Genius?'' by Julie Hecht, the comedian Andy Kaufman is quoted saying that his favourite book is ''The Demon'' by Hubert Selby (p. 159). * ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' inspired the name of Sting's first band, Last Exit. * The Manic Street Preachers song, "Of Walking Abortion", from the album ''The Holy Bible'', begins with a quote from Selby: "I knew that someday I was gonna die. And I knew that before I died, two things would happen to me, that number one: I would regret my entire life; and number two: I would want to live my life over again." *British band Alt-J composed a song entitled "Fitzpleasure", inspired by the short story "Tralala" from ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''. * In the Nicolas Winding Refn film ''Bleeder'', a character enters a book store asking for a Hubert Selby Jr. work. * Nicolas Winding Refn dedicated his film ''Pusher II'' to Selby Jr. * The block of East 10th Street between Second and Third Avenues in Manhattan (where Selby lived in 1964 with his second wife, Judith, and her son, James) is mentioned in Chapter 23 of Tom Robbins's 1976 novel, ''Even Cowgirls Get the Blues'', being described specifically as the place where "Hubert Selby, Jr., wrote ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Robbins|first1=Tom|title=Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (GoogleBooks jump to relevant page)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8UlJX7zkFqYC&q=robbins+selby+cowgirls&pg=PT89|isbn=9780553897890|date=2003-06-17|publisher=Random House Publishing }}</ref>
==Works==
===Fiction=== * ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964) * ''The Room'' (1971) * ''The Demon'' (1976) * ''Requiem for a Dream'' (1978) * ''Song of the Silent Snow'' (1986) (short stories)<ref>''Song of the Silent Snow'' is a collection of fifteen stories spanning more than two decades of writing.</ref> * ''The Willow Tree'' (1998) * ''Waiting Period'' (2002)
===Spoken word=== * ''Our Fathers Who Aren't in Heaven'' – Compilation by Henry Rollins. 2xCD set (1990) * ''Live in Europe 1989'' – Spoken word with Henry Rollins. CD. (1995) * ''Blue Eyes and Exit Wounds'' – Spoken word with Nick Tosches. CD. (1998)
===Filmography=== * ''Jour et Nuit'' – Screenwriter. France / Switzerland (1986) * ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' – Writer and actor. United States/Germany (1989) * ''Scotch and Milk'' – Actor (Cubby). United States (1998) * ''Requiem for a Dream'' – Screenwriter and actor. United States (2000) * ''Fear X'' – Screenwriter. Denmark / United Kingdom / Canada (2003)
===Documentaries=== * ''Memories, Dreams & Addictions.'' Interview with Ellen Burstyn. Special feature on ''Requiem for a Dream'' – Director's Cut DVD release. (2001) * ''Hubert Selby Jr.: 2 Ou 3 Choses...'' (A Couple of Things About Hubert Selby Jr.) by Ludovic Cantais, France (2000) * ''Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow'' (2005)
===Unfinished and unpublished=== At least one work-in-progress remained unfinished and unpublished at the time of Selby's death: ''The Seeds of Pain and the Seeds of Love''. Excerpts from this work are heard on the ''Live in Europe 1989'' CD.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tygersofwrath.com/hubert_selby.htm|title=A Conversation with Hubert Selby, Jr.|website=www.tygersofwrath.com|access-date=2018-03-09}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.blogofdeath.com/2004/04/27/hubert-selby-jr/|title=Hubert Selby Jr.|date=2004-04-27|work=The Blog of Death|access-date=2018-03-09}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Wikiquote|Hubert Selby, Jr.}} *{{IMDb name|0782968}} *[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1854952 "Interview with Hubert Selby Jr."], NPR, April 28, 2004, originally broadcast on May 4, 1990. *[https://archive.today/20130202051528/http://articles.sfgate.com/2002-07-07/books/17555100_1_selby-marion-boyars-timothy-mcveigh Alan Kaufman, "Review of Hubert Selby Jr.'s last novel"], ''San Francisco Chronicle''. *[http://www.cubbymovie.com ''Hubert Selby Jr: It/ll Be Better Tomorrow''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190126163519/https://www.cubbymovie.com/ |date=January 26, 2019 }} (2005) Documentary on Hubert Selby Jr. *[http://www.spikemagazine.com/1199hubertselby.php Interview: Hubert Selby Jr.], ''Spike Magazine'' *[https://web.archive.org/web/20090109150541/http://www.laweekly.com/2004-05-06/art-books/dark-angel/ Los Angeles Art+Books - Dark Angel - page 1 - LA Weekly], ''L.A. Weekly'', May 6, 2004 *[http://www.exitwounds.com www.exitwounds.com Exit Wounds], Official website of Hubert Selby Jr. and Nick Tosches. *[http://www.britannica.com Encyclopædia Britannica "Selby, Hubert Jr."], Encyclopædia Britannica *[http://www.cinema.com/people/004/462/hubert-selby-jr/index.phtml Hubert Selby Jr. Biography], Cinema.com *[http://www.laweekly.com/1999-03-04/art-books/why-i-continue-to-write Hubert Selby Jr., "Why I Continue To Write. Thirty-five years after ''Last Exit to Brooklyn''"], ''LA Weekly'', February 26 - March 4, 1999. *[http://mlaus.org/wp-content/uploads/bp-attachments/6987/mexican-divorce.pdf Divorce Decree July 18, 1969], Copia Certificada De Sentencia De Divorcio, Acta No. 337156 {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Selby, Hubert Jr.}} Category:1928 births Category:2004 deaths
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