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290 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
“Porque el hombre y la bestia tienen la misma suerte: muere el uno como la otra, y ambos tienen el mismo aliento de vida. En nada aventaja el hombre a la bestia, pues todo es vanidad.” (Eclesiastés, 3, 19)
The New York Times Book Review says it is: “An extraordinary achievement…a vision of hell so stern it cannot be chuckled or raged aside.”
Harry T. Moore says: “The raw strength and concentrated power of Last Exit to Brooklyn make it one of the really great works of fiction about the underground labyrinth of our cities.”
Last Exit to Brooklyn is divided into six parts that can, more or less, be read separately.
-Another Day, Another Dollar: A gang of young Brooklyn hoodlums hang around an all-night cafe and get into a vicious fight with a group of US Army soldiers on leave.
-The Queen Is Dead: Georgette, a transvestite hooker, is thrown out of the family home by her brother and tries to attract the attention of a hoodlum named Vinnie at a benzedrine-driven party.
-And Baby Makes Three: An alcoholic father tries to keep good spirits and maintain his family’s marriage traditions after his daughter becomes pregnant and then marries a motorcycle mechanic.
-Tralala: The title character of an earlier Selby short story, she is a young Brooklyn prostitute who makes a living propositioning sailors in bars and stealing their money. In perhaps the novel’s most notorious scene, she is gang-raped after a night of heavy drinking.
-Strike: Harry, a machinist in a factory, becomes a local official in the union. A closeted homosexual, he abuses his wife and gets in fights to convince himself that he is a man. He gains a temporary status and importance during a long strike, and uses the union's money to entertain the young street punks and buy the company of drag queens.
-Landsend: Described as a “coda” for the book, this section presents the intertwined, yet ordinary day of numerous denizens in a housing project.