Last Exit: Four Readings of Hubert Selby’s Georgette

I am in an introductory fiction writing class in college in New York City, and we are tasked with bringing in a paragraph we find particularly moving. I choose the paragraph from Hubert Selby, Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn in which a transgender sex worker, Georgette, saves the atmosphere of a party by pulling down a book and reading Poe’s “The Raven” aloud as Charlie Parker echoes from the record player. I don’t then know why this section makes me cry. Perhaps, I thi