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Content snapshot
Flag an inaccuracy →What's in this book, at a glance — five things readers want to know before they start.
Violence
Very heavy
A gang rape; extensive violence; street brutality throughout
Language
Very heavy
Pervasive strong language; Selby's phonetic Brooklyn vernacular
Sexual Content
Very heavy
Graphic sexual content including a gang rape; prostitution; explicit sexual violence
Substance Use
A lot
Alcohol and drugs throughout; poverty and addiction intertwined
Emotional Intensity
Very heavy
The gang rape sequence is among the most disturbing in American fiction; the transvestite character's story is both compassionate and devastating; the novel refuses any redemptive arc
What this book is about
A collection of interconnected stories set in Brooklyn's working-class neighborhoods in the 1950s: a gang rape, a transvestite prostitute, a labor strike, the daily brutality of poverty and violence. Hubert Selby Jr.'s debut is one of the most extreme books in American literary fiction — frank about violence, sex, and degradation in ways that got it banned in the UK when published. It is also one of the most compassionate, written from deep inside the lives of people literature usually ignores.
Notes for sensitive readers
Reader-flagged moments and themes that may affect your experience.
Gang rape — one of American literature's most disturbing sequences
Extensive graphic violence and sexual violence throughout
Profound and compassionate toward characters in extreme degradation
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