The Willow Tree - Softcover

The author of the notorious Last Exit to Brooklyn returns after a 12-year hiatus with another bleak tale of inner-city life. Revisiting the familiar and forbidding New York City of his previous works, The Willow Tree is the story of Bobby, a young black man who, with his Hispanic friend Maria, is savagely beaten and burned by a Hispanic gang, their lives irrevocably shattered. Rescued by an elderly handyman named "Moishe", Bobby is drawn from his hatred and thirst for revenge by the lonely survivor of the concentration camps. Written in Selby's characteristic long, fractured, unpunctuated paragraphs, The Willow Tree certainly lacks the vigour and depth of Last Exit, content to wallow in sentimentality and simplistic morality. However, Selby has certainly lost none of his ability to evoke atmospheres of tension and suffering. Moishe's details of his family's imprisonment, their escape to America and the death of his son in Vietnam are heart- rending and provide a platform for Bobby to jump beyond himself. While Selby's later works may have been overshadowed by the growth of realistic fiction, this will not disappoint his legion of fans. Beyond the comparisons, Selby has extracted another keen glimpse in to the shadows of dispossessed America. --Danny Graydon

Bobby is young and black. He shares a cramped apartment in the South Bronx with his mother, his younger siblings and the ceaselessly scratching rats that infest the walls behind his bed. Barely a teenager, he is old beyond his years. The best thing in Bobby's life is Maria, his Hispanic girlfriend. They are in love, and they have big plans for the summer ahead. Their lives are irrevocably shattered when a vicious Hispanic street gang attack the couple as they walk to school. With Bobby savagely beaten and Maria lying in hospital, terrified and engulfed by the pain of her badly burned face, "The Willow Tree" takes the reader on a volcanically powerful trip through the lives of America's dispossessed inner-city dwellers. Into this bleak and smouldering hinterland, however, Selby introduces a small but vital note of love and compassion. When Bobby's bruised and bloodied body is discovered by Moishe, an aged concentration camp survivor, an unlikely friendship begins. As Moishe slowly, painfully, reveals his own tragic story, Bobby struggles angrily with his desperate need for revenge.