"still livinng...he died"???
updated, thanks. yeah, that struck me odd as well. -asmadeus 02:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Selby is a hypocrite
I don't get writers like Selby, Mamet, et al....millionaires who relentlessly, almost obsessively worked at something they loved - writing - and became wildly successful, achieving the American Dream - only to denigrate and rail against anyone who might want to achieve the same American Dream in their books and plays. Selby thinks (er, "thought" - he's dead) that not only is the American Dream not achievable, but than anyone who TRIES to achieve it is immoral. Sorry, but coming from someone who dropped out of school at 15, never read a book before deciding to become a writer, and then became a best-selling fiction writer, I have one thing to say to the Selby-ites who think (thought) like he does: Only in America.
Reply to the above
What is your proof that Selby was a millionaire? If he was, do you think he would have spent his last years teaching at USC? If you read the interview in Lou Reed's book Between Thought and Expression you will learn that Selby was on welfare for a period not too far previous to when that interview was conducted. Perhaps he made more money after his books were made into movies, but I don't know what he had in his bank account. In this interview he says "I'd be a millionaire today," which seems to suggest he was not the millionaire you make him out to be.
And where does he rail against the American Dream? Is this how you interpret Requiem? He explicitly said he does not see himself as a didactic writer.
So, why do you really dislike Selby?