Selby’s Last Exit

When I ran out this afternoon for lunch, I caught the tail end of an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air. And I sat there, stunned to hear a capital-W Writer talking about their work and process using virtually the exact same language I use when I talk about my own. It was eerie and not a little bit gratifying.

A few minutes into the interview, it became apparent that Terri Gross was talking to Hubert Selby. I read ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ years ago and loved it (if it’s the sort of book you can say you “love” but I really liked the writing) and so it was fascinating to hear about Selby’s life, about his process and work. It was also comforting to feel, as pretentious as I’m sure this sounds, that I wasn’t alone out here, scribbling during the in between times of real life. It gave me hope.

Gross asked Selby why he started writing and he spoke about his revelation years earlier that, when death finally came for him, he was going to feel like his life was wasted and he was going to want to live it all over again. But then he’d be dead and it would all be too late.

So he went out and bought a typewriter.

At the end of the interview, Terri Gross came back on to inform her audience that the interview was from a few years ago.

Selby died on Monday.

And at a certain point, you say to yourself “Okay, I’m sitting in the drive-thru at Taco Bell. Sometime soon, I’m going to have to stop crying and pull forward…” But that’s harder to do than it sounds.

I want to write tonight. There’s still time.