Waiting Period
A Novel
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A blood-chilling excursion into the twisted mind of a serial killer by the acclaimed author of Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr.
When the oppressiveness of his memories becomes too hard to bear, a traumatized veteran decides to die. But he grows impatient during the legal waiting period to purchase the gun that will end his sad life. Then he grows angry, resentful of those he blames for his misery and those he feels simply don’t deserve to live. Suddenly a man with no future has a new purpose and a new role as avenging angel. As he spirals deeper into the darkest regions of his twisted imagination, his grisly obsession will give him a reason to live, propelling him relentlessly forward on his great mission to cleanse the dirty city of the unworthy. A brilliant and terrifying nightmare from the author of the critically acclaimed classics Last Exit to Brooklyn and Requiem for a Dream, Hubert Selby Jr.’s Waiting Period views a grim modern world of pain and injustice through the eyes of a maniac whose mind is rapidly deteriorating. A dark and haunting work of raw, savage power, it provides further testament to the greatness of one of America’s most original contemporary literary artists. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Hubert Selby Jr. including rare photos from the author’s estate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Selby's latest offers a chilling look into the mind of a killer, as the author of Last Exit to Brooklyn uses stream-of-consciousness first-person narration to slowly transform his anonymous male narrator from a paranoid, disaffected war veteran into a deranged murderer. The catalytic event that initiates the transformation is the narrator's attempt to purchase a gun to commit suicide, but when a brief waiting period ensues, he decides instead to get even with his various tormentors. The first target is the bureaucrat at the Veterans Administration who has been denying the narrator his benefits, an alleged injustice he remedies by slipping the man a lethal dose of E. coli bacteria. The narrator goes through a brief period of killer's remorse, during which he almost confesses to a newsstand operator, but once his jitters pass, he targets a local TV celebrity for another dose of lethal bacteria. From there he goes completely over the edge, building a homemade crossbow as he explores the feasibility of using explosives to facilitate similar attacks in various cities around the country. Selby's style is relentless, harrowing and frighteningly effective, albeit somewhat monotonous and tough to read; this might have been a better novel if Selby had introduced some secondary characters and broken up the first-person narrative into chapters built around each incident. Still, in a world in which the reach of terrorism seems to grow on a daily basis, this story is a disturbing reminder of how vulnerable we are to attacks from the discontented and deranged, regardless of their location or nationality.
