HUBERT SELBY JR.

from John Muckle, May 8th. 2004

Dear Tom, Sorry to hear of Selby's death - did we talk about it at Hammersmith? I don't remember. I probably told you years ago about meeting him. He was looking for a copy of a C19 evangelical pamphlet - The Greatest Thing In The World by Henry Drummond, a commentary on St Paul, Corinthians. I tracked it down for him and gave it to him at the launch/premiere of the Last Exit film. Earlier he'd written to thank me personally when I engineered new paperback editions of his novels - his letter was a mini paranoid fantasy about how his typewriter was out to get him. I had a Chinese meal with him and Marion Boyars in Soho. He had only vegetables. Said he liked Creeley and (especially) Philip Larkin, and spoke of admiring Richard Price (Clockers etc.). He was a very charming man, even tired, jet-lagged. The last time he'd been out of the US was in the Navy. I remember him looking in a shop window at a brightly coloured Chinese silk dressing gown and wondering whether to buy it for his girlfriend.
All best, John

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