I was critical towards The Willow Tree, Selby's 1998 comeback, but compared to Waiting Period, it reads like Requiem For A Dream. After all, The Willow Tree still not only retained some of Selby's Naturalism, but also magnified the compassion that was always present in his work but was often somewhat difficult to see. And upon having read it, I thought that, its perceived weaknesses aside, perhaps Selby mark II, having spent twenty years in literary silence, would develop this kinder side further, that he hadn't lost the plot but merely changed it. Then I saw a blurb describing Waiting Period, learned that it tells the tale of a deranged veteran whose depression leads him to become a serial murderer, and became somewhat apprehensive, to say the least. Then I actually read the thing. Unfortunately, my fears were confirmed. Waiting Period is by far Selby's worst book. Crime And Punishment it definitely ain't.

Selby's style has not changed at all since Last Exit To Brooklyn came out in the sixties. That lack of quotation marks and that abundance of run-on sentences that made Requiem For A Dream seem so feverishly vital are now just motions to go through. Waiting Period's only accomplishment is to dilute it to a stream of broken thought fragments, depriving it of any power it still had. Selby even plagiarizes himself at times - that "cops and robbers" bit on page 185 is lifted straight from Selby's 1971 novel The Room, word for word, and those depressed rants at the beginning are mighty similar to some of the ones in the aforementioned novel. Except The Room, difficult and often vicious as it was, _never_, _ever_ demanded that the reader approve of its character - on the contrary, it was a portrait of self-abasement of the lowest kind, and made sure to underscore it.

Waiting Period, on the other hand, revels in it. Consider the fact that the main narrative - a stream-of-consciousness first-person monologue from the point of view of the main character - is occasionally interrupted with little paragraphs in italics that say things such as this: "Wonder upon wonder. The man is not only without fault, he is with virtue. His nobility brightens the night sky. Oh my son, my son, what joy you awaken in me and thus the world." (167) Then, a bit later, we get: "You are the aurora borealis of my life." (179) This delusional viciousness could have come from a Chuck Palahniuk novel; in fact, it's what fuels Palahniuk's entire career. It's bitterly ironic, since hacks like Palahniuk have made names for themselves aping, among other things, Selby's own The Room and The Demon. But you know how it goes - the student becomes the teacher, and they both ride home on the kindergarten bus. Or something. It occurred to me that these interludes were meant as some kind of Ironic Attack upon religion - the dedication ("To the Inquisition"! Oh, how _clever_!) seems to support this - but if so, it lacks any depth whatsoever. Much emphasis is placed on the fact that the murderer only murders those who "truly deserve" to die. Why - that's exactly like Raskolnikov, except without the whole point!

At its worst, the writing is not only derivative, but just plain bad. "Feel like any moment now I/ll be so focused on the process that I/ll become a part of it and just flow through the ether and become a part of every atom, every proton and quark and resonate through the Universe...all of it...all, all... ...Oh, what a sublime thought, to float free of the body and mind, just a pulse in space...but it would be _my_ pulse, _my_ awareness, awareness of freedom, free from the vice-like oppression that has crushed me all my life..." (36-7) Every quark, eh? Right. I never thought I'd live to see the day when Hubert Selby Jr. would start sounding like a chapter in a self-help booklet, but there it is, right before your eyes. Honestly, I found myself looking at the spine of the book to make sure that this was really written by Selby. I mean, for crying out loud, this is Hubert Selby! This man wrote not one, but two triumphs of Naturalism! This man was one of America's outlaw poets! What happened?

I don't recommend Waiting Period to anyone. Go read Selby's Requiem For A Dream. It's emotional, raging, dramatic and powerful, and it has much to say to you. All Waiting Period has to say is that it's over.

I have to admit, I was pulled into the plot by the hook - a guy wants to buy a gun to kill himself, but because of the waiting period, he ends up deciding to kill other people as well.

While there's more to the story than that simple one line, the writing is so labored it makes it hard to get through the novel. I have heard good things about Selby's writing (Last Exit to Brooklyn) but I now believe I should have started there. This was a turn off...

Selby is a poet who writes from experience. The experience is ugly - the poetry masterful. He lets his flag fly. That's a lot more than most others do. Read for yourself. Read all his books.