Author Burroughs's Book
Reviews
Junky
"Junky" by William S. Burroughs is a bleak take on heroin addicts during the 1940s-50s. The story tells how the main character, William Lee, goes from a middle-class existence in the Midwest to pushing/using drugs in New York City, from morphine to marijuana to cocaine to (mainly) heroin. The book discusses almost every aspect of a junkie's life, from obtaining their drugs, to using them, to avoiding the police, to "Junk Sickness" (withdrawal), to prison...
Naked Lunch
This novel is a loose collection of its author's drug-induced delusions. It takes place mostly in Tangiers, Morrocco, where the writer sometimes lived. He depicts the city as a depraved, sexually deviant, drug-addled, bizarre underworld, known as Interzone. Characters come and go, strange situations and themes play themselves out. A recurring character in Burroughs' work, Dr. Benway, a sadistic quack bent on mind control, also surfaces every once in a wh...
Queer
William S. Burroughs in his frequent fictional form William Lee journeys through Mexico and into the jungle in search of the drug Yage in a search for transcendence. William Lee is an unemployed writer obsessed with finding and taking the drug Yage, a powerful hallucinogen rumored to exist in the jungles of Mexico. Written in the 50's, the story was not published until the 80's and features an illuminating introduction by the author that cannot be taken ...
The Naked Lunch
The homosexual drug addict William Lee journeys through Tangier and the surrealist land of Interzone having sordid encounters with sadists, drug abusers and other secretive homosexuals. Naked Lunch is told from the first person point of view of the homosexual drug addict William Lee. Lee escapes the puritanical culture of America to come to terms with his homosexuality and feed his drug addiction in Tangier, Morocco. The narrative is non-linear and told ...
