The Demon
Hubert Selby Jr


'A major American author of a stature with William Burroughs and Joseph Heller.' Los Angeles Times

'There is only one source of energy for my hate, he said, 'and that's me. And there's only one ultimate destination for my hate and that's me.'

Harry White is a man haunted by a satyr's lust and an obsessive need for sin and retribution. The more Harry succeeds - a good marriage, a good corporate job - the more desperate he becomes, as a life of petty crime leads to fraud and murder and, eventually, to apocalyptic violence.

Author of the controversial cult classic, Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby began as a writer of short fiction. He plunges the reader head-first into the densely realized worlds of his protagonists, in which the details of daily life rub shoulders with obsession and madness. Although fundamentally concerned with morality, Selby's own sense of humility prevents him from preaching. He offers instead a passionate empathy with the ordinary dreams and aspirations of his characters, a brilliant ear for the urban vernacular and for the voices of conscience and self-deceit that torment his characters.

'Selby's place is in the front rank of American novelists ... to understand his work is to understand the anguish of America.' The New York Times Book Review

Also by Hubert Selby Jr available from Marion Boyars: Last Exit to Brooklyn, The Room, Requiem for a Dream, Song of the Silent Snow and The Willow Tree.

Price: £6.99/$14.95
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0-7145-2599-5
Fiction
Publication date: April 2002

COVER DESIGN: ELEANOR ROSE