Hubert Selby, Jr. came into prominence in 1964 with the publication of Last Exit to Brooklyn, a collection of violent, interrelated stories depicting homosexuals, thugs, drunks, whores, and others engaged in acts of perverse brutality and blind self-destruction. Last Exit to Brooklyn was the subject of an obscenity trial in England, banned in Italy, and given a mixed reception in the United States. Selby, then 36, had drawn on his personal experience for the stories of life in the lower depths. Some critics found the work self-indulgent, obscene, and unliterary, while others rose to its defense. The reactions were strong on both sides, but the critics were in agreement on at least two points--that Selby knew his material and that his style was energetic and uninhibited.

Two novels have followed Last Exit to Brooklyn. The first of these, The Room (1971), about an imprisoned psychopath awaiting trial, extends the themes and...