A Scream Looking For A Mouth

I had always wanted to meet Hubert Selby Jr. I had thought Last Exit to Brooklyn was a great original work, fierce and filled with great rage and tension heralding a Great New Voice - an explosion that leapt off the pages.

HS: I wanted to put the reader through an emotional experience. My ideal is that the surface of the line would be so intense that the reader doesn't even have to read it. [Laughs] I mean, it just comes off the page and you absorb it - I mean to use it.
LR: How long did it take to write it?
HS: Six years.
LR: On and off?
HS: No, every night. Every fucking night, man.

Hubert Selby's eyes are blue- a pale blue. There's no redness in them, which is odd since physically he seems to have been through hell. He is missing a lung and some ribs- the result of tuberculosis caught while in the Merchant Marines. He looks like a crouched letter s. He types because longhand is too painful.

HS: It was torture. You know I had to learn to write. For instance, "Tralala"- I think it was only twenty pages long or something. I don't know. It's not very long. It took me two and a half years. See, I don't know how to constructively and clearly sit down and think. I have to think out loud even talking with someone or on paper. And most of that time was spent in understanding the stories.

These stories were shown to friends who encouraged him to have them published. Some were, although he's not sure of the names of the magazines.

HS: Finally when I understood what I was supposed to do with the stories, then it just [snaps fingers] like that.
LR: When did that take place?
HS: After two and a half years [Laughs] And then I- see- I have to understand the story. I think we're all given the story. And it's my responsibility as an artist to understand the story that's given to me to write- understand the very essence of the story, the psychodynamics of it, and from that you create a work of art. So, after two and a half years with "Tralala" I realized that what I had to was reflect the psychodynamics of an individual, Tralala, through the rhythm and tension of a prose line.
LR: Is this in retrospect?
HS: Well, I didn't figure it out. It just suddenly, after two and a half years, came to me. Ohh! That's what I'm supposed to do. And then it- just went. But by that time I'd spent two and a half years going over whatever was in my head, the so-called material, then it just [snaps fingers] went like that.
LR: What do you think of the unique situation in Czechoslovakia?
HS: Why, I'm curious? Why just Czechoslovakia? What's different about that, in so many ways, than the other? I mean, maybe I'm unaware of something. That's why I ask?
LR: Because they made a dissident playwright their president.
HS: Oh, I see. Well, but that's not unusual.
LR: Mmm?
HS: It's not unusual in Eastern Europe. Especially Eastern Europe. In the past, their philosophers, their poets, have- and Western Europe too, have been members of their cabinets, and the parliaments, and leaders. So, that's not unusual. I think it's terrific, but it's not unusual. This is the only country where only bad actors have power. You know? Not men of imagination. Although the so-called Founding Fathers were all mystic, spiritually-oriented people.
LR: Why are you a writer?
HS: Hmm. Buddha said, "Don't ask why." I mean, I don't really know why I'm a writer, but I am. Why I write is I have no choice. And no matter how good I feel before I get in front of a typewriter, I always feel better when I'm...I just come alive. I feel complete. I'm more alive when I'm working. And it's my job.
LR: Do things just come to you?
HS: Well, in a sense, yes, but, of course, that's misleading. I mean, they sometimes may come from seemingly nowhere into my awareness, but most of the time, they're kind of going through a gestation period; I can kind of feel it working its way around, and I kind of hear it, and it comes up and kind of presents itself into my awareness. And I sit down. And there are other times I'm not aware of it until I may suddenly hear a line and write the line, and go on.
LR: How old were you when you wrote it?
HS: When I started. Oh, boy. I guess I was maybe around twenty-eight years old. Let's see. No, I guess I was younger than that. Maybe twenty-six when I started writing. I think. Somewhere around there.
LR: Are you formally religious?
HS: No. Not in the sense of organized religion; church.
LR: Okay. As I recall, various short stories- various chapters in Exit- are prefaced by quotes.
HS: Usually, the Old Testament. Yeah.
LR: Is that something that you enjoy reading?
HS: Well, it took me many, many years to learn how to read the Old Testament. I finally found a way, and I enjoy it. And, quite often, I'll do that because it's a book that really contains lots of very simple insights into a very involved situation. You know. Consciousness...raised up.
LR: Simple insights?
HS: Yeah. They're usually very clear. Very simple. And about something-
LR: By simple, do you mean universal?
HS: Well, I mean universal, but very simply stated. The truth is always very, very simple when you come across it. But the ramifications of it go on and on. Accept it and assimilate it. And those little lines from the Old Testament usually not only epitomize what's happening in whatever they precede, the story, but it also indicates the answer to the problem that'll be stated in the story.
LR: Exit has been made into a movie. Has it been difficult to immerse yourself in a novel twenty-six years old?
HS: Well, yes and no. I mean, 'cause I didn't actually reimmerse myself in the novel. But I sort of had bits and pieces of it presented to me first in talking about it with the producer and the director. So, in going over the outline as originally written by the screenwriter, and then going over the screenplay with them, and watching it being shot, it came in gradual pieces. I mean, it wasn't like jumping into the whole thing. And it was exciting. It really was exciting. I'd lost touch with how much I loved those people.
LR: How much you loved them?
HS: Yeah.
LR: You mean the characters.
HS: Yeah. Yeah, see. I don't think of them as characters. I think of them as people.
LR: Now, I'm sure you must get asked this question all the time. Are these characters made up of various people you know? You know, like "Tralala" isn't really based on a real person; it's based on some characteristics from here, from there, from there?
HS: To a degree. I mean, there was somebody named Tralala. But that's all I know about her. I heard two things one night somewheres, and I remember the night Tralala took her tits out on the bar. And at some other point, somebody said- it could have been months later- they found Tralala naked... And that's all I know about Tralala. And the name, a name like Tralala sticks in your mind. And the same thing with "Strike." It's all imagination, but yet it's my experience in life, filtering through my imagination. The only one that approaches being real is Georgie. Georgette. There was a young gay kid named Georgie. So, that part is accurate. The way Georgie is in the book is me. I mean, you know, my imagination...whatever.
LR: That's what you think Georgie would think, in the book?
HS: Right.
LR: It's interesting the way you use interior monologues that go from one person's mind to another person's mind. They're never identified. You have to realize who's talking by the way they say it. It doesn't say, "thought so and so."
HS: I worked very, very hard to do that. Because I believe that we reflect our inner self in our vocabulary, and how we utilize that vocabulary, the rhythm of our speech, the juxtaposition of words, the syllables. You see I was raised on the radio- Sam Spade. But the biggest influence that I can think of is the streets. The fucking streets of New York. You don't realize it 'til you go to a place like L.A.; it's so homogenized. You've been in L.A., haven't you?
LR: Of course.
HS: You know how homogenized the speech is, out there. You can't tell if a guy- if his background is Greek, Italian, Swiss, Irish. Everyone's like Oklahoma. But New York! Oh! The fucking language! The language is just-
LR: Also, it's-
HS: And the...just the...fucking vitality.
LR: The energy.
HS: Yeah!
LR: I mean, I know when I'm back in New York. There's no missing it- I mean, just looking out the window at the city, then when it lands, the minute you hit the ground, it starts...
HS: That's right!
LR: The screaming, the yelling, all of it. It's like I get off on it.
HS: Me, too. I fucking love it. The last time I was here was when we shot the film, walking across town in the street, and, you know, there's one of those vendors. You know, a hipster. And he's got some stuff on the street, on a blanket. And there's some dude, bending over, looking at it, and just as I passed [laughs] this guy said, "Hey, I guarantee it."
LR: Oh, I know.
HS: [Laughs]
LR: I'll come back in thirty days.
HS: [Laughs]
LR: It didn't work.
HS: I...[laughs]
LR: Yeah. You know, I was on the subway the other day- see, it's an unending source- I was on the subway the other day, and a guy gets on, and says he's Doctor Double Bubble. Right? And started from there. It was his concept on why you should give him money, and contribute to the homeless. It was a great rap; it deserved some money. I can't imagine that happening other places.
HS: No.
LR: And this is low-level energy. You know. There's the other stuff that gets...more intense.
HS: Yeah.
LR: What was your reaction to the idea of making Exit a film?
HS: Well, I've always thought it would be a great film, because I write graphically. You know, the way I write is...I feel it. And then I hear it. My major conscious influence as a writer is Beethoven. I mean, I visualize it, and then when I come and write I try to find the perfect word that will perfectly describe everything I feel, see, and hear. So, it's all a very graphic kind of thing. I mean, I see everything very clearly.
LR: Now, are you a formally educated man?
HS: I left school at fifteen.
LR: So, when you say, "search for the perfect word" is-
HS: Or syllable, whatever.
LR: Is the perfect word made available to you from self-education, self-knowledge, or-
HS: We have all the perfection we need.
LR: [Laughs] That's a great answer.
HS: But it's true.
LR: Yeah, of course it's true.
HS: I just have to move and get out of the way. And let it come up. You know what I mean?
LR: No, I know exactly what you mean.
HS: Yeah. So...and in fact, that's my job. You know, to get my ego out of the way, you know. So I have to find the perfect thing, the perfect note, because, for me, all the typography and everything else are musical notations. So, I have to find the right word, phrase, syllable, punctuation that perfectly describes- and what happens is, if you don't succeed perfectly in doing what I attempt to do, you look like a real fool. I'm still called a barbarian and [laughs] an illiterate, in this country.
LR: Is that true?
HS: No, I'm not an illiterate; not at all.
LR: No, no, that- oh, my god, no. That's not what I meant. I meant, is-
HS: Oh.
LR: -is that, I'm sorry.
HS: Oh no, I wasn't thinking that you were insulting me. I thought you were asking me what I feel about myself.
LR: No. No. No, I meant, is it true that you get attacked, still?
HS: Well, they don't bother. Well, for instance, six years ago, I spent the year on welfare. My son and myself. I've applied, over and over, for grants, fellowships...but I always get turned down. I got turned down, again, last year, by the NEA.
LR: With the body of work that you have?
HS: They despise me in this country. I'm not saying the readers don't like. me. But the established literary community, they ought to know from me. That's one of the reasons I loved going to Europe so much. They respect me over there.
LR: It's interesting that Europe seems to follow people who try to write down their vision of America as realistically as they can- they're taken so much more seriously in Europe, and over here, people don't seem to want to hear about it.
HS: Well, a prophet is met with honor, except in his own country. You know, everyone seems to have something to protect. And everyone operates from fear. You know, I don't mean that literally, everyone. But most people operate from fear.
LR: Some people operate from anger.
HS: Mmm. Well, fear is the underlying thing. You see, fear needs a form to be effective, and anger is the prevalent form. [Laughs] In one way or another.
LR: Does the fear, anger, apply to yourself and the writing of Last Exit?
HS: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if the principle is true in one area, it's true in every area. It must be true for everything and everyone.
LR: That's why I'm asking.
HS: Yeah.
LR: Which form would you say it took.
HS: Well, self-pity. I would say self-pity. You see, for me, the self-pity goes into anger, and then into rage, and so forth. And I thought that was what I was writing from, that very- that anger. And then, since the movie, and seeing what was going on, and seeing what was happening to these people, and then reading quotes from me, from 1964. I just read one recently. It just proves to me, again, that we don't really know ourselves. I thought I was just enraged, and yet, I can see now how the love was so frustrated that I was grappling and groping, and I was crying inside...But I...I couldn't allow myself to get in touch with that. The compassion was overwhelmed by the self-pity in my awareness, and I didn't know that I was crying for me and crying for them. Because I couldn't find a way to just stop and grieve for what had happened to me. So that got misdirected into the fear and self-pity, which just came out of anger and rage. Because I didn't know what to do- I didn't know how to grieve, and say, simply, "You know Cubby? You had a tough life. You got fucked over. So, now, what are we going to do about it?" I couldn't just say that. I've always felt like the battleground of the hounds of heaven and the hounds of hell. Right? You know, it's a scream looking for a mouth-
LR: [Laughs]
HS: You know?
LR: A scream looking for a mouth.
HS: That was me.