Title: The Room
Author: Hubert Selby Jr
Publisher: Marion Boyars
'The Room' was the second novel written by Hubert Selby Jr. in 1971.
Selby is best known for Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem For A
Dream. 'The Room' is an incredibly dark and disturbing book about a
petty criminal and the sadistic fantasies of lust and revenge that torment
his mind while idle in his solitary jail cell. Although the main character
of the story is a simple-minded man, he is still able to weave a complex web
of fantasies involving high-priced lawyers and the policemen who arrested
him among others. We never find out exactly what crime he committed, but
that is not even important.
There are few authors that could tackle this type of subject matter as well
as Hubert Selby Jr. It seems as if he lived the life of the main
character, it is almost written from an autobiographical standpoint.
This was an excellent book, although it was hard to read at times due to
some of the disturbing content which I will not elaborate on. Even Hubert
Selby Jr has admitted he has not been able to re-read it because of the fact
that it is so disturbing. Let's just say if you are easily offended you
might want to read a Winnie the Pooh book instead. If you are not easily
offended and want to take a walk through the mind of a man that is slowly
going insane then I highly recommend picking up this book. Once you get
going, this book is very hard to put down.
Check out what other readers said
about it on Amazon.
Punkis incarcerated@attrition.org