SOURCE: A review of Song of the Silent Snow, in The New York Times Book Review, September 21, 1986, p. 26.

Harry Lewis on Selby's Message:

What is significant about Selby's role as a storyteller is that it comes not only from the impulse to entertain, but from a need to teach, to deliver a lesson, to document. Like a fine scientist or a sharp historian, he teaches, reveals and delights by moving us always with his narration of the details of lives. All details are given their own integrity. In fact, we know his characters most in the details, the movements, of their daily lives. Selby's stories are about how people live in the world in which they find themselves. Dream world or harsh, brutal world of "reality," it makes no difference, since each moment is given its own. Seen from this perspective, it doesn't make any difference whether Selby's...