1988

1988 marks a key point in the publication history of Requiem for a Dream. The year appears in the book’s copyright notice and dates Richard Price’s foreword, while the supplied narrative evidence does not establish it as the year in which the characters’ story takes place.

Copyright and Publication History

The book’s copyright notice credits Hubert Selby, Jr. with copyright in both 1978 and 1988. The preface to the 2000 new edition identifies 1978 as the year Requiem for a Dream was originally published, so 1988 belongs to the work’s later publication history rather than its original appearance. The copyright information records the year but does not, by itself, specify the circumstances of a particular 1988 edition.

Richard Price’s Foreword

The book includes a foreword by Richard Price dated January 1988 in New York City. Price frames the novel as an encounter with the suffering and degradation bound up with its characters’ dreams, emphasizing that knowing what is coming does not spare the reader from their experience. He also describes the force of Selby’s writing as its ability to make readers ache for people they might otherwise find unlovable. The date therefore situates this response to the novel in 1988, distinct from the book’s original 1978 publication.

Relation to the Story’s Timeline

The year 1988 should not be treated as an explicit date for the plot on the evidence available here. The narrative excerpts depict, among other incidents, Harry Goldfarb and Tyrone C. Love riding a bus in the South Bronx, meeting hostility at a Southern gas station, and later being arrested; none of these passages assigns those events to 1988. The year is securely attached to the book’s copyright and to Price’s foreword, while the supplied story scenes remain undated.