Last Exit to Brooklyn byHubert Selby, Jr. (1957). This stylistically uncompromising and innovative, gritty and notorious novel is a famously bleak, foul-mouthed and frank collection of six linked stories set in the violent neighbourhoods of Brooklyn. Selby brings out the dope addicts, hoodlums, prostitutes, workers, and thieves brawling in the borough’s back alleys of Brooklyn. First published in the USA in 1957 and then again in 1961 and 1963 before making a splash in 1964, it showed us the fierce, primal rage seething in America’s cities.
Total Points: 6 (ABrav 6)