The Review of Contemporary Fiction

Waiting Period, by Hubert Selby, Jr
reviewed by David Seed

Hubert Selby, Jr. Waiting Period. Marion Boyars, 2002. 197 pp. $22.95.

This novel is the extended monologue of a man obsessed with death. He is planning his own suicide, but when a delay occurs in obtaining a gun, he changes purpose and decides to kill those he thinks deserve to die. The question raised in the title—whether the novel will only describe waiting—is answered once he moves into action. His first target is an official in the Veterans Administration whom the narrator thinks has cheated him out of his rightful benefits, and he devises a plan to plant E. coli culture where it will contaminate the bureaucrat’s food. During this planning, the narrator justifies his actions by reflecting on the presence in America of a right-wing gun culture without suspecting that he may be just as much a prisoner of his own obsessions. Short inset passages in italics give external images of the narrator and balance the subjectivity of his monologue. Selby skillfully builds a picture of an isolated individual whose interaction with waitresses and shopkeepers remains minimal throughout, scarcely more than banal greetings or orders. The irony of the novel lies in the new purpose the narrator feels when he embarks on a killing spree. His E. coli plan succeeds better than he had hoped, killing more than the bureaucrat. His account takes on a new upbeat tone. He jokes to himself, speculates about how the law would deal with him, and even starts creating news reports about himself by feeding spurious information about the “Russians” responsible for his bomb and wearing a Groucho Marx moustache when detonating it. The disguise reflects his adopted role of joking commentator on American society, one that he combines with a Bonnie-and-Clyde tradition. The conclusion to the novel underlines the irony that a bomber should give the strongest final affirmation: “life is worth living afterall.”