Hubert Selby, Jr.
| Hubert Selby Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | July 23, 1928 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Died |
(aged 75) Highland Park, Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Novelist, poet, screenwriter |
| Nationality | American |
| Literary movement | Modernism, Beat Generation |
| Notable works | Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Room, Requiem for a Dream |
| Partner | Tiny Selby (nickname) & Suzanne Selby |
| Children | Claudia, Bill and 2 others |
Hubert "Cubby" Selby Jr. (July 23, 1928 – April 26, 2004) was an American writer. His best-known novels are Last Exit to Brooklyn (1964) and Requiem for a Dream (1978), exploring worlds in the New York area. Both novels were adapted later as films, and he appeared in small roles in each.
Selby wrote about a harsh underworld seldom portrayed in literature before then. His first novel was prosecuted for obscenity in Great Britain in 1967, and banned in Italy. His work was defended by leading writers. He has been considered highly influential to more than a generation of writers. In addition to his works, for 20 years, he taught creative writing at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, where he lived full-time after 1983.
Hubert Selby was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York City, to Adalin and Hubert Selby Sr., a merchant seaman and former coal miner from Kentucky. Selby and his wife Adalin had settled in Bay Ridge. The boy attended public schools, including the competitive Stuyvesant High School. His childhood nickname, "Cubby", accompanied him through his life.
Selby Jr. dropped out of school, and at the age of 15, persuaded recruiters to let him join the Merchant Marines. (His father had recently rejoined it.) In 1947, while at sea, Selby Jr. was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis due to the cows on board, which had bovine tuberculosis; doctors predicted that he would live less than a year.
He was taken off the ship in Bremen, Germany, and sent back to the United States. For the next three and a half years, Selby was in and out of the Marine Hospital in New York for treatment. Antibiotics had not been available and TB was widespread.
Selby went through an experimental drug treatment, streptomycin, that later caused some severe complications. During an operation, surgeons removed several of Selby's ribs in order to reach his lungs. One of his lungs collapsed, and doctors removed part of the other. While the surgery saved Selby's life, he had a year-long recuperation and chronic pulmonary problems for the rest of his life. Selby was given painkillers, among which heroin, because of the severity of the surgery, and he became addicted. He struggled with substance abuse for decades.
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