- Paperback: 288 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (20 April 1999)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747542449
- ISBN-13: 978-0747542445
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 92,350 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
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
Product Description
Set in the Bronx, this novel tells the story of Bobby, a young black man, and his Hispanic friend, Maria. Their lives together are irrevocably shattered when a vicious Hispanic street gang attack leaves Bobby savagely beaten and Maria lying in a hospital bed with a badly burned face.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have read all of Selby's books, save for "Requiem for a Dream" (though I have seen Aronofsky's superb cinema treatment of it).
All of Selby's works, up until this one, contain a savagery and hatred for the injustice and pain of this world. This world view , I think was most likely brought on by the events of his own life experiences (surgeries, amputations etc).
Selby's books are some of the most visceral, terrifying, disturbing and truthful that I have ever been fortunate to come across. Though his uncompromising lyrical savegery can sometimes be hard to take.
The fable of "The Willow Tree" is in my opinion, his best book. All of his others are black places of hopelessness, dark clammy holes with no light at all, nothing but the whispering maw of destruction and despair.
The Willow Tree brings us awareness, for the first time ever in Selby's books, of the existence of hope and forgiveness, which can be used as weapons to heal the great hurts that the world can sometimes heap upon us.
This is the book I feel truly represents the most important turning point in Selby's personal journey.
Be submerged in darkness, and through your own valor and humanity emerge cleansed.
A masterwork.
FatherCrow
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The plot: Bobby and his girlfriend are savageley beaten up by a street gang. Maria ends up in hospital while Bobby staggers away and collapses. Bobby is found by a kindly old man named Moishe, who takes him in and looks after him. In time Moishe helps to heal Bobby's cuts and bruises, but his hatred and thirst for revenge seems incurable. Bobby wants to kill the gang leader responsible but Moishe knows, doing so would destroy his life. Moishe knows all about hatred and revenge, he was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp during the war. Having barely rebuilt his own shattered life, can he stop Bobby from shattering his own? My verdict: a unique read that wont be forgotten, the narrative and style are almost poetic, and there are some very touching sequences in this book, notably Moishe's recollections of the war, and the emotive reason for the book's title. The buildup of friendship between the unlikely characters is engrossing and heart-warming. If you're looking for a book with a bit of depth and meaning... here it is. But if you want trashy light entertainment, look elsewhere.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Hubert Selby Jr is an author who's books never cease to amaze me. I know that a lot of folks can find this stuff exhausting or even too plan, but I don't find that at all. All his books to me reflect lives that firstly I am lucky enought to not know, but also lives and events that perhaps peolple should be informed about. Raw, challenging events that occur in the world that we can live without having to deal with, but perhaps should know about anyway. His books portray a hard, violent world as it is, but not to glorify it - to say 'this is how it is, let's change it'.
The Willow Tree is about a young black kid called Bobby living in a ghetto, who is consumed by revenge and hatred for a gang of Pueto Rican kids who beat him near to death and threw lye in his Pueto Rican girlfriend's face - firstly badly disfiguring her, then driving her to suicide. Bobby is hiding out for most of the book in an old German's residence. The man in question, Moishe, discovered Bobby near to death wandering aimlessly in his neighbourhood. Moishe, a truly good soul but haunted with guilt and harsh memories of his time in a WWII concentration camp, can only sit back and watch as Bobby gets better, gains his strength and slowly but meticulously plans his revenge on the gang.
Bobby's thunderous need for vengeance is the exact opposite of Moishe's need for peace and tranquility in his life - to forget all the pain he experienced when he was in the war. The tug of war between the two mens' emotions is at times almost unbearable, but moments of beauty and humanity, like when Bobby keeps sneaking back to the neighbourhood to see a friend with messages and gifts for his mother, and when Moishe and Bobby visit the willow tree which has become Moishe's spiritual haven from the ghetto, the world and his memories, provide a salvation from the intesity of the situations in hand and also a glimps into what is really important in life. Bobby knows no different than this type of revenge. He will have seen it before in the form of others performing the same acts of vengence and violence because it is a way of life for some, and it is also a cage. But Bobby really does appreciate the kindness offered to him by Moishe too, and you can feel the genuine pleasure he feels around the old man and the old man round him.
A brilliant book. Unrelenting, but sincere.
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