Hubert Selby, Jr. and Darren Aronofsky

If you only read one book by Hubert Selby, Jr., you'd think he only writes about miserable people who abuse drugs in New York. If you only read two books by Hubert Selby, Jr., you'd think he only writes about miserable people who abuse drugs in New York.

Okay. Maybe he does only write about miserable people who abuse drugs in New York.

Hubert Selby, Jr. was born in 1928. Dude also had chronic lung disease and was hospitalized for ten years. Because he lived so close to death, he wrote dark, depressing novels. His first big hit was Last Exit to Brooklyn, which was made into a film in 1989 starring Jennifer Jason Leigh. The New York Times said, "To understand Selby's work is to understand the anguish of America" (source), putting him among the ranks of other emotionally distressing authors like Dostoevsky and Nicholas Sparks.

Selby published the novel Requiem for a Dream in 1978. After ten years of almost literally coughing up a lung, Selby was once dependent on heroin and painkillers, so he knew something about addiction. He channeled his pain and struggle into this stream-of-consciousness novel. (Source)

When Darren Aronofsky decided to make Requiem "The Most Depressing Movie Ever Created" For a Dream, he got Selby himself onboard to write the screenplay…alongside Aronofsky, naturally. (You don't get much more auteur than ol' Darren.)