Since the publication in 1964 of his novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, which quickly achieved the status of a cult classic, Hubert Selby, Jr., has held a place as one of the foremost exponents of American underground literature. His work has yet to receive extensive critical attention, in part because of its deliberately shocking subject matter and its resistance to precise classification. In Understanding Huber Selby, Jr., James R.

Giles examines the writer's four novels and one collection of short stories to make the case that the full complexity of his fiction has not previously been understood. Giles contends that Selby's writings, which are usually labeled as either "naturalistic" or "surrealistic," represent an innovative merger of both narrative modes.

Suggesting that Selby's work echoes not only that of such American naturalists as Theodore Dreiser, Stephen Crane, and Nelson Algren but also that of major European existentialists, Giles demonstrates the importance of Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, Jean Genet, Albert Camus, and especially Celine to Selby's aesthetic.

Giles argues that the novelist's merging of naturalism and existentialism produces a unique narrative perspective on the pain and desperation of the alienated urban American male and a portrayal of the exploited, powerless urban outcast that is unexcelled in American fiction.