Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby, Jr.

The last Katy-Jacob book club pick for 2007 was Last Exit to Brooklyn. It was also the latest entry in my own reading mini-theme for 2007, "Pre-Giuliani New York was so much more interesting."

The book is a collection of semi-connected stories. The biggest link is the geography: the same rough neighborhood of Brooklyn, 1950s-ish. The other connection is the repetition of certain characters, but the recurring names may be a writerly trick to establish universality--or just the simple fact that Brooklyn used to have an awful lot of Vinnies hanging around. Otherwise, the stories don't have much of a shared theme, other than the unrelenting brutality of the wrong side of the tracks.

The first story is a short one about a fight between wannabe tough guys and local sailors. It's kinda like West Side Story--only Maria is a hooker, and there's 150% more broken teeth and bleeding kidneys.

Next, there's a longer, better story about Georgette, a transvestite who obsesses over a neighborhood guy who treats her like crap. The really fascinating thing is the inversion of gender roles in this one. Georgette (along with her drag queen clique) is a hyperfeminized figure, a wistful man's conception of what a girl should be. But she still acts like a "man," in that she pursues Vinnie. In turn, Vinnie becomes the coquette, suggesting that he'll let Georgette sleep with him for cash. Unusual for the time period, I would think. There's a very laid-back attitude about the gender/sex issues overall. It's never clear whether Vinnie and his friends are merely hard-up for sex, and are willing to play fast and loose with "girl" parts in order to get some; or whether they're really latent homosexuals, and know exactly what they're doing. These technicalities are beyond the main issue, which is the cruel pageantry of sexual attraction. Also, the story taught me that "Miss Thing" has been in use by drag queens far longer than I would have expected. If everyone weren't so horrible and benzadrine-laden, the matter-of-fact sexuality would have been refreshing.

The book's centerpiece is "Strike," which follows union lackey Harry as he pretends to run a factory strike. Really, he's just using the union's petty cash to escape from his unhappy marriage, and to explore his taboo gayness. Again, the sexual roles are very much switched around: Harry's wife is the bedtime aggressor, and he can't handle it. So he gets ill, lashes out physically, and exaggerates his machismo at work. There's also a weird duality about what he wants. He seeks the softness and femininity of a traditional wife, but the fact that he's gay complicates that. So all biological women are "ballbusting [c-bombs]," but the transvestites and effeminate men become ideal partners. You want to feel pity for his trappedness, but the fact that he's a total jerk (and commits an ultimately irredeemable act) makes that impossible. Unfortunately, the story bears little resemblance to Last Exit to Springfield despite the union elements, but maybe that's best for Homer's sake.

"Tralala" is the apex of the sexual violence in the book, but by the time you get there, it's like, "Oh, is there more spunk and blood? No biggie." Basically, it's the story of young Tralala, whose cheery name doesn't stop the cynicism and obsession with petty amounts of cash that lead her down the ol' spiral. You know, in Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation, I don't remember the scene where soldiers, killing time before they ship out to Europe, lined up in a junkyard to gang rape a strung-out girl who's too far gone to care. Maybe I should go back and check.

The book concludes with "Landsend," which is a smaller nexus of stories about a housing project. While discussing, we tried to figure out whether the poverty of the projects was really worse back then, before welfare reform, or if the drug and gang complications of today make that old-style poverty seem quaint. Hard to tell, because the only remotely decent people in this section are a senile old lady and a woman who thinks the trashiness of her neighbors is contagious. The thread of sexual and social dysfunction from the rest of the book continues here, but seems to have exploded. The anecdotes come together to create a purgatory of poor people and even poorer choices.

When the book ends, it's not because there's any redemptive moment, or even an instance of clear social commentary. It just stops. This is the only justifiable way to end it, but it's hard to take the necessary step back, breathe, and try to process what you've absorbed. I can't help but wonder if the book would have faced the same obscenity trial and villification if it had tried for some (any) moralizing on behalf of the characters. We can handle the Hester Prynnes of the literary world, but what do we do with the Tralalas?

I guess you just try to appreciate the blood and the honesty, and look at the parts that are kinda sweet. Like the small scenes of genuine sensuality that pop up sometimes in all the violent or dirty sex, or the hoped-for romance that Georgette tries so hard to create in an environment that just can't sustain it. Or you wait for Rudy Giuliani to come along and clean it all up.

Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 by Dave Eggers et al

The Best American books have become one of the best rackets in publishing. I used to stand in the bookstores at year's end, and be guilted into the idea that I hadn't read nearly enough good essays/sportswriting/short stories throughout the year. Then, when the series grew to about fifty different books every November, I gave up on the guilt-induced buying. Best American Poetry by Monkeys 2007 is just never going to fit into my book budget or my limited fun-reading time. But I do make it a point to pick up Best American Nonrequired Reading each year, mostly because it fills me in on the quirky essays/topical writing that I would have enjoyed reading in the first place. Plus it's got the Eggers/McSweeney's stamp of approval. And what good Park Slope-ite doesn't support her neighbors?

Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007 was actually better than its lackluster predecessors from the past few years. More brief and funny pieces, fewer wankfest essays from super-literary journals that no one outside of the Iowa Writers' Workshop has heard of. Also, the intro, traditionally from a celebrity who goes out of his way to sound literary, was less boring this year. Sufjan Stevens (whom, admittedly, I know only from recommendations from friends who have much hipper music taste than I) had the honor this year, and he didn't try to be too writerly. He told an entertaining story about growing up in the hippiest of hippie schools in the 1970s--and it could have been the work of any NPR clique member.

One of the things I like best about Nonrequired Reading is that it gives a taste of the genres I can't tolerate in large doses, but should make a nominal effort to know. Like graphic novels. This year's selection is from Fun Home, which was the edgy comic du jour (am I allowed to call it a comic?) about a year ago. I'd avoided it, because it seemed too trendy--but was nicely surprised by the depth of story. I can still look askance at webcomics, though, right?

The cutesy elements get tiring ("Best American Beginnings of Ten Stories About Ponies," "Best American Names of Television Programs Brought to Their Logical Conclusions"), as does the annual segment where scientists are polled about their "dangerous" political ideas. This is the edgy Best American, we get it.

The good parts more than make up for the tedious bits. Scott Carrier's Rock the Junta looks at censorship and rock-and-roll in the uber-repressive Myanmar. Spin sends a writer to cover a goth music fest in the Midwest (three years ago, you know it would have been Chuck Klosterman). Several stories, including a charming one by Miranda July, show why yuppies shouldn't have kids. And the post-Katrina pieces are starting to be less shellshocked and more interesting. Plus, there's a commencement speech from Conan O'Brien that's pure Conantastic joy, especially when you've gone without him for a while (52 days, not that I'm counting).

I don't think I'd trust all (or most) of my reading to a cabal of high schoolers from California, but I'm certainly content to let them weed out some of the wit and grit from the year's literary morass.

Mere Anarchy by Woody Allen

Woody Allen the director makes concessions to modernity. He casts Will Ferrell, has (finally) stopped casting himself as the romantic lead, and seems to have moved beyond the New York of the 1970s. Woody Allen the writer, not so much. Sure, he makes the occasional reference to the internet, or comments on modern food insanity. But for the most part, his prose is pretty much the same it's been since the 60s. Not many contemporary writers could get away with using slang that was first heard in Brooklyn delis in 1956.

In his latest collection, Mere Anarchy, the Woodman does pretty much the same thing he did in Without Feathers and Getting Even--which is to say, he writes a lot of short pieces with hyperactive premises and even speedier language. None of them here captured my heart quite like "The Whore of Mensa" did, but the book was highly readable. It was actually kinda comforting in its familiarity. I was tempted to tag Woody an Endangered Author, merely because of his age and the unevenness of his last five years' worth of films, but he's not really making a last-ditch attempt at anything. He's keepin' it real--1967 or 2007. In fact, I'm not even sure if he was parodying himself, or if he's just perfected the conceit of overwriting on purpose. I guess he's just Woody being Woody.

More importantly, style issues aside, the book is simply entertaining. For every tired borscht belt joke that my eyes slipped over, I found two or three things that made me chuckle out loud on the subway. Some favorite parts:

"To sum up: apart from my own Beyond Good and Evil Flapjacks and Will to Power Salad Dressing, of the truly great recipes that have changed Western ideas Hegel's Chicken Pot Pie was one of the first to employ leftovers with meaningful political implications. Spinoza's Stir-Fried Shrimp and Vegetables can be enjoyed by atheists and agnostics alike, while a little-known recipe of Hobbes's for Barbecued Baby Back Ribs remains an intellectual conundrum. The great thing about the Nietzsche Diet is that once the pounds are shed they stay off--which is not the case with Kant's 'Tractatus on Starches.'"

"Donald lived at Mr. Eisner's home for six months when he and Daisy Duck were separated. Donald had been having an affair with Petunia Pig, Porky Pig's girlfriend. It was a no-no at Disney to socialize with creatures from a competing studio, but in Donald's case Mr. Eisner chose to look the other way, which upset the shareholders."