'Last Exit,' 'Requiem' author Selby dead

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Hubert Selby Jr., the acclaimed and anguished author of Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream, died Monday of a lung disease, his wife said. He was 75. Selby died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at his home in the Highland Park section of Los Angeles, said his wife of 35 years, Suzanne. Born in New York City, Selby's experience among Brooklyn's gritty longshoremen, homeless and the down-and-out formed the basis for his lauded 1964 novel "Last Exit to Brooklyn," which was made into a film in1989.

"It was a seminal piece of work. It broke so many traditions," said Jim Regan, head of the master's of professional writing program at the USC, where Selby taught as an adjunct professor for the past 20 years.

"There was that generation of writers: William Burroughs, Henry Miller, and there was Hubert Selby. And he's one of the last of that generation, of some of the greatest writers in this country."