Customer Reviews
Selby's Best Book - By: , 26 Jan 2006 
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 & hatred for the injustice & 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 & 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" isin 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 & despair.
The Willow Tree brings us awareness, for the first time everin Selby's books, of the existence of hope & 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 pointin Selby's personal journey.
Be submergedin darkness, & through your own valor & humanity emerge cleansed.
A masterwork.
FatherCrow
Selby's unrepenting vison of life continues.. - By: R. Fox, 22 Jan 2003 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 & events that perhaps peolple should be informed about. Raw, challenging events that occurin 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 livingin a ghetto, who is consumed by revenge & hatred for a gang of Pueto Rican kids who beat him near to death & threw lyein his Pueto Rican girlfriend's face - firstly badly disfiguring her, then driving her to suicide. Bobby is hiding out for most of the bookin an old German's residence. The manin question, Moishe, discovered Bobby near to death wandering aimlesslyin his neighbourhood. Moishe, a truly good soul but haunted with guilt & harsh memories of his timein a WWII concentration camp, can only sit back & watch as Bobby gets better, gains his strength & 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 & tranquilityin his life - to forget all the pain he experienced when he wasin the war. The tug of war between the two mens' emotions is at times almost unbearable, but moments of beauty & humanity, like when Bobby keeps sneaking back to the neighbourhood to see a friend with messages & gifts for his mother, & when Moishe & Bobby visit the willow tree which has become Moishe's spiritual haven from the ghetto, the world & his memories, provide a salvation from the intesity of the situationsin hand & also a glimps into what is really importantin life. Bobby knows no different than this type of revenge. He will have seen it beforein the form of others performing the same acts of vengence & violence because it is a way of life for some, & it is also a cage. But Bobby really does appreciate the kindness offered to him by Moishe too, & you can feel the genuine pleasure he feels around the old man & the old man round him.
A brilliant book. Unrelenting, but sincere.
thought-provoking and written with unique style - By: O. Southwood, 08 Jul 2002 
The plot: Bobby & his girlfriend are savageley beaten up by a street gang. Maria ends upin hospital while Bobby staggers away & collapses. Bobby is found by a kindly old man named Moishe, who takes himin & looks after him. In time Moishe helps to heal Bobby's cuts & bruises, but his hatred & 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 & revenge, he was imprisonedin 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 & style are almost poetic, & there are some very touching sequencesin this book, notably Moishe's recollections of the war, & the emotive reason for the book's title. The buildup of friendship between the unlikely characters is engrossing & heart-warming. If you're looking for a book with a bit of depth & meaning... here it is. But if you want trashy light entertainment, look elsewhere.
Vintage Selby! He's back on the map. - By: , 08 Dec 1998 It's been a while - but Selby has hit back with another punishing read. Starting with a vicious attack on a mixed race couple which resultsin the suicide of the female & the gradual recovery & violent revenge of the male, the narrative never lets up. Bobby's recovery is aided by a compasionate holocaust survivor Mush who hides outin a luxury underground bunker & feeds his patient tasty ice cream. When Christmas comes Bobby has only one target left, but instead of pummeling him senseless & removing body parts, he simply tortures him for a while then backs off - perhaps realising that Mush was right all along. This is a stunning & powerful novel by one of the worlds greats. If you like his previous books & can't quite see what all the fuss about Irvine Welsh is about, then grab this soon. Not recommended as a Christmas gift for Grandma.
