SOURCE: "Psychic Vengeance in Last Exit to Brooklyn," in Literature and Psychology, Vol. XXIV, No. 4, 1974, pp. 153-66.

Below, Wertime examines the role of "retributive justice " in Last Exit to Brooklyn and suggests that the main characters in the book actually seek out their own punishments in an effort to resolve psychological conflicts.

When a fictional work is topical either because of the information it imparts to the reader, or by virtue of the issues which it takes as its province, it risks being read as a merely documentary effort or as an act of social comment—and its artistic intent, accordingly, runs the danger of misconstrual. Hubert Selby, Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn is an interesting case in point. Highly praised by reviewers upon its appearance almost a decade ago, this first of Selby's novels—there is now The Room, his second—was acclaimed as a work...