missy

How many 81 year old rebels are out still rebelling it up? Hubert Selby's body is ravaged by disease but he still has that wry intelligent and self-deprecating sense of humor that made his novels Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream still memorable since they were both published over a quarter of a century ago. Many people have thought he was brought back into the public with the release of Darren Aronofsky's film version of Requiem for a Dream but he is still writing his books with his latest, Waiting Period released last year.

Check out Hubert Selby's website.


Daniel Robert Epstein: Your stories have always been outsider type work. Do you consider yourself one in life as well?

Hubert Selby: Well, [laughs] It sure depends upon your point of reference, whether it be reality or feeling. I have always felt outside and then the more I look at the world I think maybe it's a better place to be. Do I really want to be a part of what's going on? Yeah I guess I know I've always felt that way. I would have to say yeah, I guess I've always been an outsider who wished to hell he wasn't.

DRE: Was there any one time you tried to push yourself into the mainstream with your work?

HS: No, I just always wished, because everybody else always seemed to have it all together and know what they are doing. I get tired of pretending all the time. But the one thing, the one saving grace, was my work because I was just incapable of compromising anything there.

DRE: That's important for sure.

Sex has always been a part of your work in some way.

HS: As opposed to what? [laughs]

DRE: How do you feel about pornography for example?

HS: Well I'll tell you the truth, I don't know if I have read any pornography. Well I have if you consider Facade [magazine] and some things of that nature. I don't know if I could really answer that because I don't know what pornography is like.

DRE: I'm sure your work has been accused at times of being pornography, but.

HS: I've been called that I believe. So which means what are we talking about? And there are many works of art that have been called pornographic so what are we talking about. I'm not sure; I'm not personally familiar with a lot of stuff now. I have heard this thing called child pornography and so forth that sound rather hideous. I don't rally think much of that.

DRE: Much of your work has been embraced by a certain part of outsider culture, like punks and the Goth culture. How do you feel about that crowd?

HS: Well I tell you I find it extraordinarily flattering, because I wrote a lot of my work maybe before their parents were born, for crying out loud. I met a lot of young people through Henry Rollins, he and I am very close. We have done a lot of shows together in the past and traveling together. I was astounded, not only that they have read my work, I'm familiar with it, but they related to it and they knew what was going on. It just really flattered me and still does. To think that something I wrote back in the late 50's can be so meaningful to a generation far removed from that. I love the idea that they read it.

DRE: That people today are still relating to your work?

HS: That and there are still some old people like myself around who relate to it. But I find it very, very flattering.

DRE: Obviously you had a resurgent interest in some of your older work when Requiem for A Dream movie came out. How do younger people respond to you now as opposed to before it came out?

HS: Well I guess there were more of them, see the thing is, Last Exit to Brooklyn was published in 1964. Requiem for A Dream was published in 1978 I believe. The movie came out in 2000. So there is a span of years there and from what I understand the nature of Requiem speaks to the current generation of younger people because there is evidently a lot of hopeless dope fiends out there.

DRE: Possibly more than ever before I guess, right?

HS: Yeah as I understand it the stuff is cheap and good. When you don't know what to do with your life I guess it's a great way to pass the time, until it starts to pass you.

DRE: Were you surprised to find someone like Darren Aronofsky, who is probably 40 or 50 years younger than you, who had the perfect mindset to adapt your work?

HS: It was extraordinary, really extraordinary. After I had seen Pi, I thought that this guy really understands what is going on. The thing that still baffles me, to the best of my knowledge, Darren is not involved in anything. He has a perfect understanding of obsession, because that is really what we are talking about, obsessions of the mind. So it is truly remarkable.

DRE: And he is not even a Goth or a punk or anything like that either, he is just a guy.

HS: Well, he is just a guy; however, he is a very extraordinarily focused guy. He has a great visual sense, he's film. He's not drifting through life. He has a very definitive focus.

DRE: Would you say that, the movie Requiem for A Dream is the closest cinematic way to make you feel like you have done a drug like heroin?

HS: More than any I've seen. Have you ever seen that thing, Man with a Golden Arm?

DRE: Years ago.

HS: Agh! Now that is ludicrous. That was Hollywood's version of it. Anyway [laughs]. But there are other movies that were enjoyable as movies, but had nothing to do with anything Drugstore Cowboy, as a film it was terrific and Bill [William Burroughs] was great in it, but the portrayal of the life is really obscene. That is pornographic really, that kind of thing.

DRE: Because it's an exploitation.

HS: Yeah and it lies. It lies, oh you do these bad things and then someday everything is ok and you live happily ever after, oh come on! It doesn't happen.

DRE: Are you unhappy?

HS: Am I unhappy?

DRE: Yeah.

HS: I wouldn't say I'm necessarily so unhappy, I don't know if I'm happy. I guess I am unhappy with the circumstances of my life, especially my physical circumstances. I don't think of myself as an unhappy person.

DRE: Well, your physical sense it brings up the point that you've had this imminent cloud of tuberculosis over you for, how long, 55 years?

HS: [Laughs] Many moons kemosabe. Well, I started to die 36 hours before I was born and then when I was 18 they said I couldn't live more than two months, which was in 1946. It has been an ongoing battle, being dead. I don't know who has own so far, I know eventually death is going to win. [Laughs]

DRE: He wins everything, right?

What informed your work more, or was it the result of one another, was it the drugs or this death feeling?

HS: Oh, who can say? You have a couple of very powerful forces at work in me, the experience of death and the fighting to live, which is a powerful thing. And then you throw in a really good portion of self pity and mix it all up and who knows what is what. In addition, of course, I am an artist, I finally accepted that. So I'm not sure what my take is. Obviously there is a whole mix of things here and I have no idea what may take over anything else.

DRE: I read something interesting. I don't know how old this quote was but the NY Times said that "You understand the anguish of America".

HS: Yeah that is what it said.

DRE: What is your take on that? I mean the anguish of America seems to change every few years or so. Do you think your keeping up?

HS: Maybe the surface changes but I don't see much difference in the basic elements and principles behind it. For instance, Requiem for A Dream, so many circumstances change but the dream that is so disruptive is the Great American Dream, that will kill you dead and it's doing it, it's on its way isn't it? Look what's happening, good god. The Great American Dream says you go out and you get and you get and you get, you're strong and powerful, and successful, and that is just self destruction unfortunately. A lot of other people get destroyed along the way. Just pursuing that dream is destructive. You're never going to understand, the only thing you can really have is what you give away.

DRE: And that is an addiction in itself, pursuing a dream.

HS: Oh, absolutely. That is the requiem. Well look, they have adds all over the place today about, you don't feel right for two seconds, here's a pill, take this pill. There must be ten million, at least ten million housewives, strung out, in this country on doctor prescribed pills. And we wonder why we are raising a whole generation of wimps. [laughs]

DRE: That's for sure [laughs]. A friend of mine that kicked heroin a few years ago, I asked him, I had never done it; it's actually one of the few things that I had never done. He said that he would never tell me not to do it because he says it's like an experience that everyone should have. I thought it was very interesting. But I'm not going to try it. [laughs]

HS: [laughs] Don't force yourself.

DRE: What is your take on that, is it something that is so unique that should be tried?

HS: It is very unique but I would never prescribe it. I wouldn't prescribe things of that nature. Being a serial killer is unique, I wouldn't recommend it. I mean they get something out of it, obviously. I read something very interesting many years ago in some book, and they did a little experiment with narcotics and I can't remember the exact numbers. I think it they took ten people and gave them each a shot of morphine for three days. And on the fourth day they asked them if they wanted another shot and eight of them said flat out no more, one said I don't care, but there was that tenth person that said yeah. So we are dealing with something that is not just cultural or social. When we have people strung out there are all kinds of reasons for it. But see one of the big problems with something along the nature of heroin, is that you can become physically addicted in a very short time even if you don't have an addictive personality. An addictive personality of course loves it because, who needs anything, you don't even need women [laughs].

DRE: See, I don't want to lose that [laughs]

HS: [laughs] Yeah man, you know what's important.

DRE: While doing my research I kept finding that you are so much more appreciated outside America. Many artists just move to Europe at that point. What keeps you here?

HS: Right now what keeps me here is I can't move. But I think also is that I'm an American; I'd hate to give anybody the satisfaction of kicking me out of here. My family has been in this country I think 350 years and I just don't see where I'm going to go. Plus my family is here, children, grandchildren. It just never occurred to me to live elsewhere.

DRE: Do your kids know everything about you, are you open with them? Did they ever avoid your work?

HS: Oh no. There were always allowed to read anything.

DRE: Did you ever have any problems with them?

HS: No, no problems with them at all.

DRE: That is amazing.

HS: I'm very blessed; my children are all I have. two children from a first marriage and three children from a present marriage, and they are all doing what they want to do and are happy doing it.

DRE: It's the 50th Anniversary of [Burroughs'] Junky this year. In case you weren't aware.

HS: I didn't know that. I still like that book. I know Bill kind of disowned it but.

DRE: Oh, it's a good book.

HS: It is.

DRE: It's such a great pulp novel and it means so much at the same time.

HS: Plus it was the first real one around, that I'm aware of.

DRE: Burroughs is obviously he is not with us anymore; do you want to stick around for the 50th anniversary of your first book?

HS: Oh yeah. I'm really unhappy with the circumstances of my life but I truly do want to live.

DRE: That is all it takes, right?

HS: I guess. I do want to live. I have to take what comes along if that is what I want.

DRE: Thank you.

HS: My pleasure man.

by Daniel Robert Epstein