Editing Hubert Selby Jr. (section)

===Early works===
Selby started working on his first short story, "The Queen Is Dead," in 1958. At the time, he had a succession of day jobs, but he wrote every night. During the day, he worked as a secretary, a gas station attendant, and a freelance copywriter.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}} The short story developed slowly for the next six years before he published it.

In 1961, his short story "Tralala" was published in the literary journal ''The Provincetown Review''. It also appeared in ''Black Mountain Review'' and ''New Directions''. It portrays the seedy life (ridden with violence, theft and mediocre con-artistry) and the gang rape of a [[prostitute]].{{citation needed|date=December 2021}} The journal editor was arrested for selling [[pornographic]] [[literature]] to a [[minor (law)|minor]]. The journal was used as evidence in an [[obscenity]] trial, but the case was later dismissed on appeal. <ref>{{Cite news|last=Depalma|first=Anthony|date=2004-04-27|title=Hubert Selby Jr. Dies at 75; Wrote 'Last Exit to Brooklyn'|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/27/business/hubert-selby-jr-dies-at-75-wrote-last-exit-to-brooklyn.html|access-date=2020-08-24|issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

On 24 October 1964, Selby married Judith Lumino, but the marriage soon fell apart. As he continued to write, his longtime friend LeRoi Jones (later [[Amiri Baraka]]), the poet and playwright, encouraged him to contact [[Sterling Lord]], then Kerouac's agent. Selby combined "Tralala", "The Queen Is Dead" and four other loosely linked short stories as part of his first novel, ''Last Exit to Brooklyn'' (1964). The novel was accepted and published by [[Grove Press]], which had already published works by [[William S. Burroughs]].  In November 1964, [[New York Times]] literary critic Eliot Fremont-Smith described the novel as "a brutal book," concluding that it "is not a book one 'recommends'--except perhaps to writers. From them, those who wish to read it, it deserves attention."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Fremont-Smith|first1=Eliot|title=Beyond Revulsion|work=New York Times|date=November 8, 1964}}</ref>

The novel was praised by many, including the poet [[Allen Ginsberg]], who predicted that it would "explode like a rusty hellish bombshell over America and still be eagerly read in a hundred years." In 1967, the novel was [[Last Exit to Brooklyn#Trial|prosecuted for obscenity]] in the United Kingdom. The British writer [[Anthony Burgess]] was among a number of writers who appeared as witnesses in its defense. The jury's conviction was later reversed on [[appeal]]. The novel was [[ban (law)|banned]] in Italy.{{citation needed|date=January 2024}}

Although he wrote all his work while sober, Selby continued to battle drug addiction. In 1967 he was arrested for heroin possession and served two months in the Los Angeles County jail. After his release, he moved from New York to [[Los Angeles]] to try to escape his addictions and finally kicked the habit. He stayed clean of illicit drugs but continued to battle alcohol abuse for the next two years. Also that year, Selby met his future wife, Suzanne Victoria Shaw, at a bar in [[West Hollywood]]. The couple moved in together two days after they met. They married in 1969, after Selby and his second wife, Judith, had finalized their divorce.<ref>{{cite web|title=Hubert Selby Jr (1928-2004)|url=http://authorscalendar.info/selby.htm|access-date=14 April 2018}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://mlaus.org/wp-content/uploads/bp-attachments/6987/mexican-divorce.pdf|title=Copia Certificada De Sentencia De Divorcio, Acta No. 337156 (July 18, 1969)|accessdate=14 April 2023}}</ref> For the next decade, Suzanne and Selby traveled back and forth between their home in [[Southern California]] and the [[East Coast of the United States|East Coast]], settling permanently in the Los Angeles area in 1983. They had two children, daughter Rachel and son William.{{Citation needed|date=February 2019}}