Hubert Selby Jr (Creator)

Hubert Selby Jr. (born July 28 1928, died April 26 2004) was an American writer, best-known today for his novels that explore the underworld of drug addiction, street crime, mental illness, and sexual deviance.

Born in Brooklyn, Selby dropped out of high school to be a dockworker, and later followed in his father's footsteps by becoming a US Merchant Seaman in 1947. While at sea, he contracted tuberculosis, and upon returning to America, Selby spent several years in and out of hospitals. While he survived his bout of TB, he lost one lung and part of the remaining lung due to the disease itself and complications of treatment.

Essentially bedridden for years and not expected to survive, Selby persevered and took up writing, as it was the only thing his health and circumstances permitted him to do to pass the time, express himself, and eventually support himself. During the same time period, Selby also struggled with heroin and alcohol addictions, which he ultimately overcame.

Selby's first published novel was Last Exit to Brooklyn, many of whose chapters appeared as stand-alone stories in literary magazines several years prior to its 1964 publication. The book gained notoriety for its frank and unsparing potrayal of life among the drug addicts, prostitutes, homosexuals, petty thieves, and housing project residents of the Red Hook and Sunset Park districts of Brooklyn. The book also received attention for its unorthodox writing style, being written in a stream of consciousness style with run-on sentences, phonetic spelling, and ellipsis.

Selby's other novels include The Room (1971) (a stream of consciousness account told from the point of view of a deranged, sadistic man as he sits in solitary isolation and concocts detailed fantasies of torturing and killing those who wronged him), The Demon, and Requiem for a Dream (1978), which is now widely regarded as as one of the best literary accounts of drug addiction.

Both Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream were adapted into feature films of the same name. Hubert Selby had brief cameos in both films and co-wrote the screenplay for the latter. He also wrote a screenplay for the surreal psychological thriller Fear X (2003), in which John Turturro played the film's protagonist.

While most Selby's novels tell the stories of doomed individuals permanently trapped in hopeless, wasted lives, one of Selby's later books, The Willow Tree (1998) stands out for its message of hope and the possibility of redemption. Selby often said that even in his earlier works, his goal was always to portray even the most depraved and lost individuals in a compassionate and human way.

While not part of The Beat Generation socially or artistically, Selby wass often compared to them for the style and content of his work, and his novels were widely praised by various Beat luminaries. Towards the later part of his life Selby received a great deal of recognition for his work - for instance, musician Henry Rollins befriended Selby and did much to promote his work.

Hubert Selby Jr. died of complications of pulmonary disease in 2004.