The Willow Tree: A Novel (39 page)

A photo of Selby with his mother, Adalin, at a party for the 1988 film premiere of
Last Exit to?Brooklyn
in Munich, Germany. Selby’s mother was a strict disciplinarian and a devout Christian who “sang in the same choir for more than sixty years.” According to Selby, she responded deeply to the world depicted in
Last Exit to Brooklyn
, despite the novel’s explicit language and violence. “She said: ‘Oh, those poor people,’” Selby recalled. “I
really
must have succeeded,” he continued, “in doing what I planned to do. And that is: to put the reader through an emotional experience, because the experience of reading that book transcended all her prejudices, her ideas, her beliefs, and she just responded to the pain of the people.”

Selby with his son Kyle, from his first marriage to Inez Taylor, and granddaughter in 1997. Altogether Selby had four children and twelve grandchildren.

Selby with his grandchildren Kimberly and Joseph in 1999.

Selby with Darren Aronofsky, who directed the film adaptation of
Requiem for a Dream
, in 2000. “I needed to make a film from this novel,” Aronofsky wrote, “because the words burn off the page. Like a hangman’s noose, the words scorch your neck with rope burn and drag you into the sub-sub-basement we humans build beneath hell.” Selby felt that Aronofsky’s film did justice to his work. After seeing it at the Cannes Film Festival he burst into tears. “It was so moving,” he explained. “It is such an emotional film, so powerful.”
Requiem for a Dream
is widely regarded as one of the best novels ever written about substance abuse. Selby’s profound understanding of addiction was surpassed only by his will to overcome the disease in his own life. The month before he passed away, doctors offered him morphine to help relieve his pain—but he refused. He wanted, he said, to retain his clarity.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1998, 2007 by Hubert Selby Jr.

Cover design by Morgan Alan

978-1-4804-3280-2

This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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New York, NY 10014

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