Rating: 
Summary: Concerns drug addled drag queens in every story
Review: Now matter how the stories in Last Exit to Brooklyn start out, they end up with drag queens on benzadrine. Some of this book is good, but then hubert starts talking about drag queens again. It's written well, but it's written about drag queens. I don't have anything against men in drag, I just didn't know that that's what this book was about: Drag Queens. So just to let the reader know, this book is about...
Rating: 
Summary: Literal Chaos!
Review: Selby paints a motley cast of characters including drag queens, hookers/johns, sailors, and union workers. Their lives are drowned in booze, bennies, and debaucherie. As worlds collide, things spiral out of control. Emotions run high. Paranoia. Violence. Degradation. A haunting reflection of cultural rebellion. It is intriguing yet sometimes hard to read, with the crazy punctuation that peppers the book. At times it is even repetitive, slightly boring, but never for long. Interesting case study in human nature.
Rating: 
Summary: Post modern literary classic.
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: Gripping story--vile imagery
Review: Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn" is surely one of the most violent, explicit, and sickening novels of our time--however, it conveys a sense of the life lived by people in the underworld of American society. To be honest, this has been only book that has interested me in over five years.
Rating:
Summary: STILL A SHOCKING READ
Review: Selby's first book was published in the late 1950s. It was subject to an obscenity trial in England although it escaped U.S. censors unscathed. The book was reissued in 1988, coinciding with the release of a movie loosely based upon it. The book's dark vision remains with the passage of time. Not a book for the squeamish, faint-hearted, or for the conventional.The book is a series of loosely related stories of varying length taking place in the tenements of Brooklyn. Many of the incidents center around an odius local bar known as "the Greeks" and its patrons. The longest story, "Strike" is about a long and ugly labor dispute and its effect on Harry, a worker and the strike organizer, on his marriage and on his sense of sexual identity. The story is detailed, sordid, violent, and fascinating. Other stories explore the world of cheap hookers, transvestites, drug users, petty crooks and drunks. The stories are raw told in a crude language of the streets appropriate to their subject matter. The book reminded me of the early work of probably my favorite novelist, the Victorian writer George Gissing, in its concentration of the underlife in our cities. There is little of the express vulgarity and sexual crudity in the Victorian writer, but I think Gissing and Selby would have understood each other nonetheless. This book is a disturbing picture of low life, partly written in the language and mores of its times but transcending that. There is little in the way of hope or love in the book and I think that the author wants to show us the consequences of a lack or hope and love. It is a book that in a materialist age can teach compassion in a language and style that pulls for attention. It is very sad, but the book invites and demands reflection. It shows us what is missing. This is probably a book that will be remembered in the literary history of America.
Rating: 
Summary: this is not the best thing i/ve ever read i can/t understand
Review: That was my attempt at writing like Hubert Selby, Jr. I don't understand how anyone can write like that. There are NO periods. There are NO commas. There are NO quotation marks. My English teacher Mr. McKee once told me that the reader has to be given clear, accurate instructions about the plot and whatever. The author has to metaphorically hold the reader's hand throughout the whole story. I feel that Mr. Selby kidnapped me in his car and dropped me off in the middle of a rather large, rather confusing, city. I had to reread the first story thing in order to really grasp what the hell was going on and to understand this absolutely confusing writing style. Maybe every single English teacher should force his or her class to read this book so that kids might start appreciating punctuation. I know I love it. I love punctuation more than I love my (insert important thing here). And as far as being the most disturbing thing ever: No, it simply wasn't. Homosexuals and transvestites really don't scare the living hell out of me. The whole book is about transvestites! EVERYONE IS A SHEMALE! That's probably the best part about the book. The shemales. But there were FAR TOO MANY of them to make it special. This book simply didn't shock, disturb or frighten me. And personally, I don't care about Harry's job at the factory. Who cares about his stupid strike? I know I don't. If you want to read a disturbing book, read American Psycho. It beats the pants off of this. It's funnier, easier to read, more disturbing, and a HELL of a lot more interesting. I did like the first story about the sailor and the one about that girl who had so much sex it killed her. I did feel sympathy towards her... just a little, though. And I thought it was funny. That's why it received two stars. That is all.
Rating:
Summary: Raw and bruising.....a modern day classic
Review: The mind simply boggles at the thought that "Last Exit To Brooklyn" should have been published in the 50s. It isn't hard to imagine the storm of controversy it created by its flagrant use of overtly sexual and lewd language. Its undeniable shock value notwithstanding, the novel is still regarded today as a classic for its blistering account of life on the other side of the tracks. The novel is full of unsavoury characters consisting of brutes, louts, pimps and whores. They inhabit a world where the sun never shines. They are all doomed. Georgette, the transvetite, Tralala, the town whore and most fascinatingly Harry, the union leader with a terrible secret even he doesn't know and pays for it when he does. Told through a series of loosely connected vignettes, Hubert Selby Junior's pitiless account of these wretched lives is so brutally honest it hurts to read. His prose is unconventional, utilising a combination of vernacular and "speak write" that has the dizzy immediacy of a screenplay. He switches between the first and third person with hardly the skip of a beat. As a novel, it's a mesmerising and compelling read. I couldn't put it down. Its cinematic possibilities have also been exploited and mined to the fullest some years back in a film version that is remarkably faithful to and captures brilliantly the essence of Selby's novel. The film has deservedly become a cult classic. I am only amazed the director didn't take advantage of the cinematic potential of Selby's last chapter, in which he indulges his voyeuristic licence to its fullest. Robert Altman would have had his camera cutting across the skyline and zooming in turns on the developing chaos within each household in the Brooklyn neighbourhood. "Last Exit To Brooklyn" may still be an uncomfortable read for some today. It's strong stuff, but those with the stomach for it will find it a wonderful read. A true modern classic.
Rating:
Summary: Best novel of the 20th Century
Review: They don't come any better than this. Urban decay and the rough times of just getting by are incredibly documented in this fantastic novel. It will make you laugh and cry at the same time. I know that sounds cliche but it's more true with this book than most others. Every story chronicled resonates with a gritty street authenticity I've yet to see duplicated in any other novel, except for perhaps Richard Price's "Clockers." The Modern Library recently came out with their opinion of the top 100 fiction works of the last century; the crime of the century was their complete exclusion of Last Exit to Brooklyn. It's surely the most underrated book I've yet to come across. That could be because it tells a story about the American nightmare which too many people choose to ignore. Read this one. It's the kind of book you can't get off your mind for days after you've finished.
Rating:
Summary: Best Novel of the 20th Century
Review: They don't come any better than this. Urban decay and the rough times of just getting by, are incredibly documented in this fantastic novel. It will make you laugh and cry at the same time. I know that sounds cliche but it's more true with this book than most others.
Every story chronicled resonates with a gritty street authenticity that I've yet to see duplicated in any other novel; except for perhaps Richard Price's, Clockers.
The Modern Library recently came out with their opinion of the top 100 novels of the last century, the crime of the century was for them to exclude LETB. It's surely the most under rated book I've yet to come across. That could be because it tells a tale of the American nightmare that is all too real for much of the United State's population.
Read this one, it's the kind of book you can't get off your mind for days after you've finished...
Rating:
Summary: Stunning and Courageous
Review: This book is a remarkable act of love and courage. Selby practicaly invented modern American fiction with this novel, an intense, honest look at life on the edge in the Brooklyn of the 1960's, when Charlie Parker and drag queens and benzendrine were just starting to signal the end of the 1950's and the start life as we know it today. There is also an excellent movie of the same name, but there is no substitute for the original. I wish this book was required reading in every American high school, though our nation is too narrow and frightened and dishonest to let a book like this into a high school library. Brief, intense, and violent, it stands with the best American classics. If you are serious about literature, or culture, or the human heart, I highly recommend this book.
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