cortright_mcmeel@cargill.com , October 6, 1998
madman genius
No two ways about it, Selby is one of the best writers in the English language, forget what pussy top100 lists say. Selby's tales will pierce your soul and make it bleed, that is the kind of power his language has. Selby literally creates this euphoria through his language that inserts the reader into the character's mind and soul. Hence, we pity the depraved, the drug addled, the whores who populate this work. Even Ken Starr would let these characters off the hook, that's how humane and brilliant Selby's depiction is of these otherwise unsympathetic characters.

tokenofyou@aol.com from New York, USA , October 23, 1997
What a book!!
I am a senior in high school, but I first read this book as a sophmore. It was mentioned as greatly influential to Henry Rollins in one of his interviews. So, I decided to give Selby a shot. He didn't shock me or disgust me (I guess that says something for my cynical generation) but, he has talent and he write a good book. I have only read a few that I have thoroughly enjoyed more that Last Exit. What am I saying... this guy is amazing... just get this book!

syegul@winmag.com from NYC , October 17, 1997
Selby's first and probably the best place to start with him.
I first read LAST EXIT when I was in junior high school, having discovered it mixed in with a cache of other books in my mother's library. I read it twice in a week, then a few more times, more slowly, over the following months. Selby crashed into my life like a meteor smacking into the earth -- literally, like someone from another world, which was what he was reporting to me. He wrote about the life in the city around him, which ruined many and forced some to ruin others, and starved people for love and made them turn to hateful substitutes. He also wrote unflinchingly about sexual agony, something I hadn't seen addressed honestly in any fiction at all until I'd read him. He also wrote with great empathy; he didn't hate any of his characters, even the vilest ones, but wanted to give them all a clear moment in the sun for us to see. I've gone on to recommend this book to others that I know will be moved and stunned by it, and they've in turn done the same to others they know. A lot of people will reflexively dismiss the book as disgusting or depressing, but I'll say this: what's more depressing? Reading an honest depiction of the worst and the best in us, or reading something that chooses to ignore the whole question in the first place? Selby will be remembered and loved for a long time after the louder, shallower, more immediate authors of our age are left to rot.

A reader , July 10, 1997
A powerful, still relevant, classic.
Hubert Selby, Jr. delivered the goods when he wrote this book. Unflinchingly honest, at times extremely brutal, Last Exit To Brooklyn gives the reader the literary equivalent of a hand grenade with the pin missing. Selby does not give readers of the book an easy time, as he brilliantly details the nonsensical minutiae, the surges of emotion and the sometimes inane nature of humanity that reside within the characters of the book, and, more importantly, within ourselves. What I'm saying is this: READ THIS BOOK!

A reader , June 22, 1997
Post modern literary classic.
Selby takes the english language and scrambles it with a typewriter. This is a very TASTY book but hard to stomach for some because of gut wrenching subject matter; it's about hatred, poverty, gangs, violence, unions, alcoholism, drug addiction, abusive marriages- being torn apart from the inside and doing nothing about it except to look in the mirror. It is not for the squeamish or the literarely faint. And forget everything you ever learned in school about prose- this is the real thing- tough and razor blade sharp.

A reader , June 16, 1997
A great, intense novel
This is an amazingly dark, brutal vision, and some of the most intense writing I've ever encountered. If you're interested in the "darker" side of the American Dream, you must read this book.