Last Exit to Brooklyn consists of five parts and a coda. There is a central episode about a labor strike that involves the novel’s characters either directly or as peripheral onlookers. The elapsed time of the novel is several months, though no definite time markers appear in the story. There is a single omniscient narrator who describes each scene with an unflinching eye while recounting the horrors of the brutal environment of Brooklyn’s Red Hook area, which includes a military base, a manufacturing plant, and a public housing project as the focal points upon which the novel turns. Central to the action and serving as a rallying point is a diner where a group of young men make obscene comments about other patrons, including Georgette, a transvestite. Georgette loves the gang leader, Vinnie, who appears to ignore Georgette, yet the impression the author gives is that Vinnie, despite his outwardly heterosexual appearance, has had a past sexual relationship with Georgette. The scene moves to the street, where Georgette is stabbed by one of Vinnie’s gang immediately after the gang has brutally beaten three soldiers, almost killing one. When the police arrive, the gang lies about the attack. Vinnie and Alex take Georgette home, where he is confronted by his violent brother, Arthur, who hates Georgette’s sexual ambiguity. Georgette escapes from his home, brother, and overly protective mother to the home of a fellow transvestite named Goldie. Several effeminate transvestites have gathered at Goldie’s apartment to take drugs, drink, and plot how to lure Vinnie and his gang in for a sexual encounter. Their success in this endeavor ends the first and second sections, “Another Day Another Dollar” and “The Queen Is Dead.” Section 3, “And Baby Makes Three,” recounts rapidly the marriage of Tommy and Suzy and the introduction of Spook, whose only goal in life is to own a motorcycle to establish himself in the motorcycle culture that surrounds them all. Section four, “Tralala,” shows Tralala, a prostitute, becoming addicted to alcohol and sex. After a series of casual relationships, she becomes more degraded, until she takes on a series of men in the gutted remains of a car. The section ends with Tralala left for dead in the car. “The Strike” traces the brutal relationship between Harry Black and his wife, Mary, with whom he has violent sex. Harry then goes to work as a lathe operator at a manufacturing plant. Harry has some limited power as the shop steward; as the result of a fight over union rules, a strike is declared. Harry becomes the picket-line overseer and spends his days drinking in the union office. While he is drinking one day, Ginger, a male homosexual, comes in with some of the striking workers. Ginger’s exotic nature attracts Harry, who soon becomes a regular at Mary’s, a local homosexual bar. At Mary’s bar, Harry meets Alberta, a male homosexual, and they start a relationship. As Harry falls more deeply in love with Alberta, the strike comes to an end, and Harry is deprived of the extra money he received as strike boss, so Alberta leaves him. On his way home, Harry molests a young boy in a vacant lot, after which he is beaten by Vinnie, Joey, and Sal who rescue the boy. The final section, “Landsend,” is the coda to the novel and is a series of vignettes beginning with Mike and Irene Kelly. All the couples, such as Mike and Irene, and the single people, such as Ada, lead a double life. There is the life that other people see, and then there is the...