‘...there is a rhythm section there, and there's the lead lines. I love the book for that because it transcends fashion and style. It's not a hip-hop album or anything, but it's a great piece of jazz. It's fantastic.' Paul Morley, BBC 2 TV Newsnight Review

'Like all great writers, Selby does not answer questions. He only raises them to a pitch so intense that only a scream or a prayer can stop the pain.' San Francisco Chronicle

In this highly polished and twisted moral tale, a man pulls back from the brink of suicide when his application to buy a gun with which to shoot himself is delayed. Instead of throwing his life away, he decides to spend all his time and effort disposing of those who he feels deserve to die. Targeting a bureaucrat in the Veterans’ Administration, he devises an ingenious method of murdering people without trace. With a renewed zest for living he embarks on a joyful killing spree, having found the true purpose of his existence. Told with Selby’s customary formal daring and stylistic elan, Waiting Period may not offer any answers to the meaning of life, but it sure poses a lot of interesting new questions.

To read an extract of this title click here

Hubert Selby Jr was born in Brooklyn New York in 1928. After a career in the merchant marine cut short by illness, he achieved international recognition for Last Exit to Brooklyn. His other novels include The Room, The Demon, Requiem for a Dream, The Willow Tree and a collection of stories, Song of the Silent Snow, all published by Marion Boyars. Darren Aronofsky’s film adaptation of Requiem for a Dream, starring Jared Leto and Ellen Burstyn, was one of the independent film hits of 2001.

Price: £7.99 / $14.95

Format:Trade paperback
ISBN: 0-7145-3090-5
(this edition replaces the out of stock trade paperback at £9.95 - same ISBN)
Fiction
Publication date: March 2004