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THE
DEMON
By HUBERT
SELBY JR.
(Signet; 1976)
This is my favorite novel by the late Hubert Selby Jr., who’s best known
for LAST EXIT TO BROOKLYN and REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. THE DEMON occupies a
unique place in Selby’s oeuvre, being (I think) his most interesting
book but also his most problematic.
Selby’s other novels are gritty evocations of big city
desperation populated by whores, junkies, convicts and thugs--in short,
the world the Brooklyn-bred Selby lived in and knew intimately. With THE
DEMON Selby was for the first time exploring a world he didn’t
know, that of corporate America. That he was unfamiliar with the milieu
is evident in the curious lack of detail relating to just what it is the
protagonist does. We’re informed at the beginning he works for an
accounting firm, but from there all we really learn about the position
is that it involves a lot of “work,” a word Selby uses to describe any
number of labors.
Said protagonist is Harry White, an ambitious young man
attempting to make his way in the corporate jungle. When we first meet
Harry he has a compulsion for having sex with married women; it’s not
necessarily the act itself that turns him on but the excitement that
goes with it. Yet upon landing a plum position in the above-mentioned
accounting firm Harry finds the same illicit thrill in hooking up with
women during his lunch hour. This, however, quickly turns into an
all-consuming obsession that nearly derails Harry’s momentum in the
company.
He finds temporary serenity by falling love with a
kind-hearted woman and getting married, which also has the effect of
improving his work. But Harry’s inner peace is shattered when he
thoughtlessly cheats on his wife, and he quickly finds himself once
again craving the excitement that comes with illicit sexual encounters.
But being the ever-resourceful type he is, Harry
discovers a new, asexual route to inner tranquility: by committing petty
crimes around his office. But eventually this loses its novelty, leading
Harry to broaden his criminal horizons to (you guessed it) cold-blooded
murder.
Despite the foulness of his writing (the subject of
more than one high-profile censorship case), Selby was a devout
Christian, and THE DEMON represents the fullest expression of his
religious convictions. The narrative is essentially a dramatization of
the biblical quote that prefaces the book: “When lust hath conceived,
it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth
death.” But the Christian iconography is laid on too thickly,
particularly in the climax, which has Harry stabbing a cardinal--on
Easter Sunday! This, as they say in Hollywood, is a little too “on the
nose.”
Yet Selby gets plenty of things right. THE DEMON is
perhaps the ultimate fictional study of the corrosive effects of
temptation, and Selby’s portrayal of Harry White’s inner desperation is
terrifyingly convincing. The idea of sexual peccadilloes leading to
madness and murder might seem outrageous, but Selby’s skill and
conviction are such that the book often reads like an actual case study.
Selby’s prose, as in his other books, is feverish and
volcanic. His style borders on experimental, in the free juxtaposition
of dialogue and inner monologue, the unorthodox paragraph formatting
(the indents tend to vary) and frequent misspellings (with backslashes
in place of apostrophes). It is, however, one of the most distinct and
arresting styles of any American writer, and is uniquely suited to this
psychologically centered account.
So while THE DEMON may not excel in all areas, its
compulsive readability, dead-on portrayal of psychosis and sheer forward
momentum make for a novel of mind-rending power. The ultimate effect is
harsh and devastating--quite simply put, THE DEMON is one of the
roughest, most impacting books you’ll ever read.
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