I selected this trade paperback from the Little Free Library at My Organic Market (MOM's) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. Thank you.

This is a raw and brutal set of stories about a group of people who lived lives centering on violence, sex, alcoholism, and drugs in 1960s Brooklyn, New York. The stories are self-contained although they have some characters who appear in more than one story. I would guess these were probably based on people the author knew in his youth.

I started the book once quickly out of curiosity to see how long I’d last, but I soon restarted it to concentrate more deeply on each story as I found this book provocative and well-written. It had been praised by other authors such as Allen Ginsberg and Anthony Burgess. It packs a powerful punch, but it is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. It is dark, misogynistic, depressing, and savage. The writing moves along at warp speed with each paragraph starting strangely at a random place and each paragraph containing multiple conversations lacking most punctuation. It is quite off-beat, colloquial and unusual in its grammatical form.

I was pretty amazed at this book. It was a slice of life in the seediest, most downtrodden parts of Brooklyn. Surprisingly, though, I found it easy to read.

The story I liked the best was called “Strike” and was about Harry Black, a leading union man, although a good-for-nothing otherwise, and the company who refused to cater to union demands unless Harry Black could be removed. This story seemed as if it went on forever, perhaps much like the length of time the workers were on strike.

In reading afterward about this novel, I learned that it was part of a genre called transgressive literature, along with such works as Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, Ryū Murakami’s Almost Tranparent Blues and Irvine Welch’s Trainspotting. As in those novels, Last Exit From Brooklyn might have had just a thin line separating its literarary value from obscenity...or was there a line at all?

I'm releasing this book for...

***The 2022 Oh, The Places We Can Go Release Challenge hosted by awaywithfairies. The book title contains the word BROOKLYN. Brooklyn is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York.

Happy reading and happy traveling (when it becomes safe to do so)!

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Enjoy the book!

Caught!

Thank you for returning this book to the Little Free Library of Twinbrook (#7720). I'm saving this book to go out for Round #2.

I'm releasing this book for...

***The 2024 Oh, the Places We Can Go Challenge hosted by awaywithfairies.Brooklyn is a town in the New York region of United States .

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Enjoy the book!

I selected this book from the Little Free Library of Twinbrook (#7720) to travel elsewhere.

I'm releasing this book at today's BCinDC meetup!

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Hello and welcome to BookCrossing ... where we make the
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Now that you've "caught" this book, it is yours to do with as you like. Read it, keep it, or give it away. It's your choice!

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Enjoy the book!

I brought this book home from today's BC-in-DC meeting for release.

Left on one of the benches near the hotel entrance.

Released for the 2024 Oh the Places We Can Go challenge and for the 2024 Movie Books challenge.

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DEAR FINDER,
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If you have not already done so, please make a journal entry so we know this book has found a new home. You don't need to join BookCrossing and you can remain completely anonymous. However, we encourage you to join so that you can follow this book's future travels. It's fun and free, and your personal information will never be shared or sold. If you decide to join, consider listing   ResQgeek (or any of the other journalers) as referring you.

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