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iRsSlw"><a class="RubricLk-gRWSOU fgWnkQ bric__lk" href="/magaze/books"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">Books</span></a></div></div></div><h1 data-ttid="ContentHearHed" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearHed-NCyCC iUEiRd NbxED hpJvIc">The Outlaw</h1></div><div class="ContentHearAccredatn-lfctVB enhwXT ntent-hear__accredatn" data-ttid="ContentHearAccredatn"><div class="ContentHearDek-bIqFFZ Mtme">The extraordary life of William S. 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class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM ByleLk-gEnFiw iUEiRd ggMZaT cXqSTL eErqIx byle__name-lk button" href="/ntributors/peter-schjeldahl">Peter Schjeldahl</a></span></span></p></div><time data-ttid="ContentHearPublishDate" dateTime="2014-01-26T23:00:00-05:00" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ ContentHearPublishDate-eIBicG iUEiRd kYZrFA kEBrdf">January 26, 2014</time></div></div></div></div></div></hear></div><div data-attribute-verso-pattern="article-body" class="ArticlePageContentBackGround-cNiFNN kbAoLA article-body__ntent"><div class="ActnBarWrapperContent-lasBkU cAHp"><div class="ActnBarWrapperComponent-cjwxLS bEeSLb"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="ActnBarWrapper-dhxmQh kNjTbQ viewport-monor-anchor"><button id="bookmark" aria-label="Save this story" class="ActnBarButton-dyFOZU hQrwCF bookmark large-screen"><span class="ActnBarSendaryButtonPrimaryIn-isbvyN cAwccV bookmark-button-in"><svg class="in in-bookmark" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 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kGxnNB rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO KhjZz AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset rponsive-image rponsive-image--expandable"><noscript><img alt="William Burroughs" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w, 1920w, 2240w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></span></div><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE iTuhkZ ptn AssetEmbedCaptn-fNQBPI fmQnYP asset-embed__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo iXWezO ptn__text">“Naked Lunch” brought to social notice them of dg e, homosexualy, hyperbolic vlence, and anti-thorarian paranoia.</span><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnCred-ejegDm iUEiRd iicloT jbIJNS ptn__cred">Photograph by Richard Avedon / “William Burroughs, New York, July 9, 1975”/ © The Richard Avedon Foundatn</span></div></figure></div><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg">“I n feel the heat closg , feel them out there makg their mov.” So starts “Naked Lunch,” the touchstone novel by William S. Burroughs. That hardboiled riff, spoken by a junkie on the n, troduc a mélange of “episos, misfortun, and adventur,” which, the thor said, have “no real plot, no begng, no end.” It is worth rellg on the ocsn of “Call Me Burroughs” (Twelve), a bgraphy by Barry Mil, an English thor of books on popular culture, cludg several on the Beats. “I n feel the heat” sound a new, joltg note Amerin letters, like Allen Gsberg’s “I saw the bt mds of my generatn stroyed by madns,” or, for that matter, like T. S. Elt’s “April is the cellt month.” (Gsberg was a close iend; Elt hailed om Burroughs’s home town of St. Louis and his poetry fluenced Burroughs’s style.) In Burroughs’s se, that note was the voice of an outlaw revellg wickedns. It bragged of occult power: “I n feel,” rather than “I feel.” He always wrote ton of spooky thory—a ic effect, given that most of his characters are, addn to beg gdily praved, more or ls nspicuoly sane.</p><p class="paywall">“Naked Lunch” is ls a novel than a grab bag of iskily obscene edy rout—least fettably, an operatg-room Grand Guignol nducted by an souciant quack, Dr. Benway. “Well, ’s all a day’s work,” Benway says, wh a sigh, after a patient fails to survive heart massage wh a toilet plunger. Some early reviewers spluttered horror. Charl Poore, the <em>Tim</em>, lmed down jt enough to be forthright his closg le: “I advise avoidg the book.” “Naked Lunch” was five years the wrg and edg, mostly Tangier, and aid by iends, cludg Gsberg and Jack Kerouac. It first appeared 1959, Paris, as “The Naked Lunch” (wh the fe article), an Olympia Prs paperback edn, pany wh “Lola,” “The Gger Man,” and “Sex.” Its pla green-and-black ver, like the vers of those books, bore the allurg veat “Not to be sold U.S.A. or U.K.” (A first edn n be yours, om one onle bookseller, for twenty thoand dollars.) The same year, <em>Big Table</em>, a Chigo lerary magaze, prted an excerpt, and was barred om the mails by the U.S. Postal Service. Fears of supprsn layed a stati publitn of the book until 1962, when Grove Prs brought out an expand and revised edn. It sold so well that Grove didn’t issue a paperback until 1966.</p><p class="paywall">As late as 1965, however, a Boston urt nfirmed a lol ban, spe ttimony om Norman Mailer argug the book’s lerary mer. (Another supporter was Mary McCarthy, who, the <em>New York Review of Books</em>, praised Burroughs’s “crankish urage” and pared “Naked Lunch” to “a worm that you n chop up to sectns each of which wriggl off as an pennt worm. Or a ne-lived t. Or a ncer.”) A year later, the Massachetts Supreme Court reversed the ban, on the ground of “reemg social value,” a wobbly legal standard censorship s then and after. Th anoted, Burroughs’s ragged masterpiece brought to social notice them of dg e, homosexualy, hyperbolic vlence, and anti-thorarian paranoia. Those temeri and his disarmgly starchy public mien—he was ever the gent, drsed sus, wh patrician manners and a sepulchral, Missouri-bred and foreign-seasoned voice—assured him a celebry stat that is apt to flare anew whenever another hort of properly disaffected young rears disvers him. The centenary of Burroughs’s birth, on Febary 5th, promis much anized attentn; an excellent documentary by Howard Brookner, “Burroughs: The Movie” (1983), is about to be re-released.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Contrary to Kerouac’s mythmakg portrayal of him—as Old Bull Lee, “On the Road”—Burroughs was not a wealthy heir, although his parents paid him an allowance until he was fifty. His namake grandfather, William Seward Burroughs, perfected the addg mache and left his four children blocks of stock what later beme the Burroughs Corporatn. His son Mortimer—the father of William and another, olr son—sold his remag share, shortly before the 1929 crash, for two hundred and seventy-six thoand dollars. Mortimer’s wife, born Lra Lee, never ceased to dote on William; Mortimer ferred to her.</p><p class="paywall">Burroughs started wrg at the age of eight, imatg adventure and crime stori. He attend a John Dewey-fluenced progrsive elementary school St. Louis and played on the banks of the nearby, sewage-polluted River s Per. Mil quot him rellg, a nice example of his gloatgly dire adjectival style, “Durg the summer months the smell of sh and al gas permeated the cy, bubblg up om the river’s murky pths to ver the oily iriscent surface wh miasmal mists.” When Burroughs was fourteen, some chemils he was tkerg wh explod, severely jurg his hand; treatment for the pa alerted him to the charms of morphe. He then spent two unhappy years at the exclive Los Alamos Ranch School for boys, New Mexi, memori of which rmed his late novel “The Wild Boys” and other fantasi of all-male societi.</p><p class="paywall">Burroughs was a brilliant stunt, graduatg om Harvard wh honors, English, 1936. He sojourned often Europe; Vienna, he briefly studied medice and equented the gay mimon. He had bee aware at puberty of an attractn to boys, and had been so embarrassed by a diary he kept of a futile passn for a fellow-stunt that he stroyed and stopped wrg anythg not school-required for several years. Later, psychoanalysis, he traced his sexual anxiety to a reprsed memory: when he was four years old, his nanny forced him to perform oral sex on her boyiend. The tumultuo experience of havg his first ser boyiend— New York, 1940—triggered what he lanilly lled a “Van Gogh kick”: he cut off the end jot of his left pkie.</p><p class="paywall">After a short hch the Army, 1942, Burroughs received a psychiatric discharge. He then worked briefly as a private tective, Chigo, where, however, he enjoyed his longt perd of regular employment—ne months—as a pt extermator. His lectable memoir of the job, “Extermator!,” the tle story of a llectn published 1973, employs a tone, typil of him, that begs to be lled bleak nostalgia: “From a great distance I see a ol remote naborhood blue wdy day April sun ld on your extermator there climbg the grey woon outsi stairs.”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The creatn story of the Beats is by now lerary boilerplate. Burroughs moved to New York 1943, along wh David Kammerer, a childhood iend who had travelled wh him Europe, and Lucien Carr, an angelilly handsome Columbia Universy stunt whom Kammerer was stalkg. Gsberg, a fellow-stunt, was enthralled by Carr, and later dited “Howl” to him. Kerouac, who had dropped out of Columbia and served the Navy, returned to the neighborhood 1944. Wh Carr as the talyst, and Burroughs, whom Kerouac goad to rume wrg, a charismatic prence, the Beat fellowship was plete.</p><p class="paywall">Carr end Kammerer’s pursu of him late on the night of Augt 13, 1944, by stabbg him and dumpg his body the Hudson River. (The new movie “Kill Your Darlgs” tells the tale only somewhat embellished fashn.) Burroughs then replaced Carr as the group’s mentor. Acrdg to Mil, Kerouac and Gsberg didn’t yet know that Burroughs was gay, and played matchmaker by troducg him to Joan Vollmer, an ede, twice-married ee spir wh a baby dghter, Julie, of uncerta paterny. Burroughs and Vollmer beme separable and, they believed, telepathic soul mat, but he ntued to have sexual enunters wh men. In 1946, he started on hero. (An uncle, Horace Burroughs, whom he ialized but never met, was a morphe addict who mted suici 1915, when the dg was legally rtricted.) Vollmer favored Benzedre.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-1 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Postwar New York updated Burroughs’s trove of crimal argot. He saw a lot of Herbert Huncke, a junkie and a jack-of-all-sms—whom Gsberg lled “the basic origator of the ethos of Beat and the nceptns of Beat and Square”—and other habués of Tim Square, whose doppelgängers roam the fictn that he had not yet begun to wre. In 1946, Vollmer beme pregnant. Burroughs, who uld be startlgly moralistic, abhorred abortn; and so a son, Billy, joed the fay. Envisng himself as a gentleman farmer, Burroughs had acquired a spread East Texas, where he cultivated marijuana, though not very well. He drove a harvt to New York wh Kerouac’s “On the Road” in, Neal Cassady—whom he disdaed as, Mil’s words, “a cheap n man”—but was too green to turn a prof. After a dg bt New Orleans, Burroughs jumped bail and settled Mexi Cy. For three years, he took dgs, drank, picked up boys, hosted iends, and cut a sorry figure as a father. (Wh Vollmer also drkg heavily, the children’s lot was grim.) A Mexin scholar of the Beats, Je García-Robl, tails the louche i another new book, “The Stray Bullet: William S. Burroughs Mexi” (Mnota). He wr that Burroughs found the untry “grotque, sordid, and malodoro, but he liked .”</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">Durg those years, Burroughs also wrote his first book, “Junky.” A pulp paperback published 1953, unr the pen name William Lee, reunts his adventur through unrworlds om New York to Mexi Cy. It featur terse, cracklg reportage, wh echo of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. The narrator’s first meetg wh “Herman” (a psdonym for Huncke) isn’t spic: “Wav of hostily and spicn flowed out om his large brown ey like some sort of televisn broadst.” “Junky” attracted no cril notice. Burroughs wrote two other books the early fifti that weren’t published until after “Naked Lunch.” “Queer”—centerg, Mexi Cy, on one of his arduo opiate whdrawals and a tratg romance wh a young man—saw prt only 1985. The most emotnal work a generally icy œuvre, was wrten around the time, 1951, of the most notor event Burroughs’s life: his fatal shootg of Vollmer, a dnken game of “William Tell.”</p><figure class="AssetEmbedWrapper-eVDQiB byBkf asset-embed"><div class="AssetEmbedAssetContaer-eJxoAx dBHGoQ asset-embed__asset-ntaer"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kKwZhx rponsive-asset AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset"><div data-attr-viewport-monor="" class="RponsiveCartoonWrapper-iTMMjI eXTYsS rponsive-rtoon AssetEmbedRponsiveAsset-cXBNxi eCxVQK asset-embed__rponsive-asset viewport-monor-anchor"><a class="external-lk rponsive-rtoon__image-lk" data-event-click="{"element":"ExternalLk","outgogURL":"" href=" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa RponsiveCartoonImage-hzNqyc ikeCcH rponsive-rtoon__image rponsive-image"><noscript><img alt="“A nja is silent as darkns so—tippyto people tippyto”" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src=" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w, 960w, 1280w, 1600w" siz="100vw"/></noscript></picture></a><div class="CaptnWrapper-jSZdqE gdZTpI ptn RponsiveCartoonCaptn-dokfdF hJgaLQ rponsive-rtoon__ptn"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ CaptnText-bHjzlu iUEiRd hWyo bsWloa ptn__text">“A nja is silent as darkns, so—tippy-to, people, tippy-to!”</span></div><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTA-eiqqMB iDCQRs"><div class="RponsiveCartoonCTAWrapper-CYIqa iTbFtf"><div class="RponsiveCartoonLkButtonWrapper-hqDAJK eSEhbj"><button aria-label="Copy lk to rtoon" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Copy lk to rtoon</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-pylk" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Copy lk to rtoon</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178637)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M16.3488 10.5017C16.2107 10.7357 16.2926 11.035 16.5318 11.17C16.7709 11.3052 17.0767 11.225 17.2148 10.991L18.4648 8.87225C19.5694 7.00002 18.9139 4.60601 17.0007 3.52508C15.0875 2.44415 12.6412 3.08562 11.5366 4.95785L9.53657 8.34782C8.432 10.22 9.08751 12.6141 11.0007 13.6949C11.1888 13.8012 11.382 13.8908 11.5785 13.9642C11.7819 14.0403 12.0058 13.9485 12.1147 13.764C12.2794 13.4849 12.1103 13.1276 11.8083 12.9992C11.7041 12.9549 11.6014 12.9044 11.5007 12.8475C10.0658 12.0368 9.57417 10.2413 10.4026 8.83712L12.4026 5.44715C13.2311 4.04298 15.0658 3.56187 16.5007 4.37257C17.9356 5.18327 18.4272 6.97878 17.5988 8.38295L16.3488 10.5017ZM7.6526 13.4983C7.79067 13.2643 7.70873 12.965 7.46959 12.8299C7.23044 12.6948 6.92464 12.775 6.78657 13.009L5.53657 15.1278C4.432 17 5.0875 19.394 7.00068 20.475C8.91385 21.5558 11.3602 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pied</p></div></div></div><button aria-label="Shop" class="BaseButton-bLlsy ButtonWrapper-xCepQ bqVKKv YsOBB button button--primary-pair RponsiveCartoonInButton-hBCBMq lpsjql" data-event-click="{"element":"Button"}" data-ttid="Button" type="button"><span class="ButtonLabel-cjAuJN bBWXSg button__label">Shop</span><div class="ButtonInWrapper-gFdzAL bPDyTT button__in-ntaer"><svg class="in in-rt" width="24" height="24" viewBox="0 0 24 24" fill="none" xmlns="><tle>Shop</tle><g clip-path="url(#clip0_3732_178638)"><path fill-le="evenodd" clip-le="evenodd" d="M4 3H2V4H4.23828L6.99617 15.2631C7.11483 15.6982 7.50998 16 7.96094 16H18.0365C18.4875 16 18.8826 15.6982 19.0013 15.2631L20.9648 7.26312C21.1383 6.62698 20.6594 6 20 6H10V7H20L18.0365 15H7.96094L5.03652 3H4.58055H4ZM10.0365 19C10.0365 19.5523 9.58881 20 9.03652 20C8.48424 20 8.03652 19.5523 8.03652 19C8.03652 18.4477 8.48424 18 9.03652 18C9.58881 18 10.0365 18.4477 10.0365 19ZM11.0365 19C11.0365 20.1046 10.1411 21 9.03652 21C7.93195 21 7.03652 20.1046 7.03652 19C7.03652 17.8954 7.93195 17 9.03652 17C10.1411 17 11.0365 17.8954 11.0365 19ZM18.0365 19C18.0365 19.5523 17.5888 20 17.0365 20C16.4842 20 16.0365 19.5523 16.0365 19C16.0365 18.4477 16.4842 18 17.0365 18C17.5888 18 18.0365 18.4477 18.0365 19ZM19.0365 19C19.0365 20.1046 18.1411 21 17.0365 21C15.932 21 15.0365 20.1046 15.0365 19C15.0365 17.8954 15.932 17 17.0365 17C18.1411 17 19.0365 17.8954 19.0365 19Z" fill="black"></path></g><fs><clipPath id="clip0_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath><clipPath id="clip1_3732_178638"><rect width="24" height="24" fill="whe"></rect></clipPath></fs></svg></div></button></div></div></div></span></div></figure><p class="paywall">García-Robl and Mil agree their acunts of Vollmer’s ath. At a iend’s apartment, she balanced a glass on her head, at Burroughs’s beht. He had ntracted a lifelong mania for guns om duck-huntg excursns wh his father, and was never unarmed if he uld help . He fired a pistol om about ne feet away. The bullet stck Vollmer the forehead, at the hairle. She was twenty-eight. He was vastated, but readily parroted a story supplied by his lawyer, a flamboyant character named Bernabé Jurado: the gun went off accintally. Released on bail, Burroughs might have faced trial had not Jurado, a f of road rage, shot a socially proment young man and, when his victim died of septicemia, fled the untry. Burroughs did the same, and a Mexin urt nvicted him absentia of manslghter, sentencg him to two years. In the troductn to “Queer,” Burroughs disparag his earlier work and adds, “I am forced to the appallg ncln that I would never have bee a wrer but for Joan’s ath,” bee iated a spirual “lifelong stggle, which I have had no choice except to wre my way out.” García-Robl avidly endors this ed appallg nsolatn, stg Vollmer as a sated martyr to lerature.</p><div class="Contaer-bkChBi byNLHx"></div><p class="paywall">Mil relat that Burroughs had told Carr, after he killed Kammerer, “You shouldn’t blame yourself at all, bee he asked for , he mand .” Some of Burroughs’s iends, cludg Gsberg, opted for an analogo unrstandg of Vollmer’s ath as an direct suici, which she had willed to happen. Burroughs’s cravg for exculpatn eventually settled on the certaty that an “Ugly Spir” had flected his aim. As a child, Burroughs had been fed wh superstns by his mother and by the fay’s Irish maid, and all his life he believed fervently almost anythg except nventnal relign: telepathy, mons, alien abductns, and all manner of magic, cludg crystal-ball prophecy and effic curs. For several years the neteen-sixti, he enthiastilly poed Scientology, which he attaed the lofty rank of “Clear,” before beg exmunited for qutng the anizatn’s Dranian disciple. And he furnished any place he lived for long wh an “one accumulator”—the metal-led woon booth vented by the rogue psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich for pturg and impartg smic energy. Mil begs “Call Me Burroughs” wh a scene of a sweat-lodge ceremony nducted by a Navajo shaman to fally expel the Ugly Spir, Kansas, 1992. The heat and smoke ed Burroughs to ask to tnte the proceedgs.</p><div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--article-mid-ntent" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--article-mid-ntent nsumer-marketg-un__slot---ntent"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><p class="paywall">Vollmer’s parents took Julie to their home, Albany, and she dropped out of her stepfather’s life. Burroughs sent Billy to be raised by Lra and Mortimer, St. Louis, and joed them, 1952, after they moved to Palm Beach, Florida. But he didn’t stay long; he set out to work on his third book, “The Yage Letters,” a qut through the jungl of Colombia for a fabled hallucogen that, he had wrten the last sentence of “Junky,” “may be the fal fix.” He found and duly ld the dg, but the journey seems s own reward, makg for fe low-down travel wrg. He needs a motorboat to take him upriver:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>Sure you thk ’s romantic at first but wa til you s there five days onna sore ass sleepg Indian shacks and eatg hoka and some hunka namels meat like the smoked pancreas of a two-toed sloth and all night you hear them fiddle-fuckg wh the motor—they got bolted to the porch—“buuuuurt spluuuu . . . ut . . . spluuuu . . . ut,” and you n’t sleep hearg the motor start and die all night and then starts to ra. Tomorrow the river will be higher.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">The book wasn’t published until 1963. In the meantime, two volum of a trilogy, “The Soft Mache” and “The Ticket That Explod,” me out, soon followed by the third, “Nova Exprs.” The were wrten largely London and Paris, between trips to Tangier, where Burroughs had lived for several years, startg 1954. They advanced his claim (wh some precents Dadaism and Surrealism) to lerary novatn: the “cut-up” technique of assemblg texts om scissored agments of his own and others’ prose. The trilogy is a sort of actured science fictn, tellg of unrground stggl agast forc of “Control”—the shape-shiftg, all-purpose bête noire of Burroughs’s world view. It is easier to read than, say, “Fnegans Wake,” but hard gog between such bursts of dazzle as the “ristance msage”:</p><blockquote class="BlockquoteEmbedWrapper-sc-SdiGL jPeLne paywall blockquote-embed"><div class="BlockquoteEmbedContent-RbGs gmbtPx blockquote-embed__ntent"><p>Callg partisans of all natns—Cut word l—Shift lguals—Vibrate tourists—Free doorways—Word fallg—Photo fallg—Break through Grey Room.</p></div></blockquote><p class="paywall">A send trilogy—“The Ci of the Red Night,” “The Place of Dead Roads,” and “The Wtern Lands”—published between 1981 and 1987, reverts to fairly normal narratn, filled wh scen of sexual and ary atrocy a succsn of mythic ci. Its hero clu Hassan-i Sabbah, the historil lear of a sometim homicidal sect eleventh- and twelfth-century Persia. “Nothg is te, everythg is permted,” Sabbah is supposed to have said (and was so quoted by Nietzsche). The prose is nimble and often ravishg, but marred by the thor’s monotono obssns and gross tics—notably, a scent to feroc misogyny, stg women as “the Sex Enemy.”</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><asi class="PersistentAsiWrapper-VGrR daRVRt persistent-asi" style="posn:absolute;top:to;height:to" data-ttid="PersistentAsiWrapper"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="ail7"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></asi></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan full-bleed-ad row-mid-ntent-ad"><div class="StickyMidContentAdWrapper-fSBzwl drzyIa ad-stickymidntent"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--mid-ntent should-hold-space"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--mid-ntent" data-no-id="f0yc4i"></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ArticlePageChunksGrid-hfxa bjczjj grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="BodyWrapper-kufPGa bDyAMU body body__ntaer article__body" data-journey-hook="client-ntent" data-ttid="BodyWrapper"><div class="body__ner-ntaer"><p class="paywall">The bgraphy, after s eventful start, be rather like an odyssey by subway the nf of Burroughs’s self-absorptn, wh nnectg stops New York, where he lived, the late neteen-seventi, on the Bowery, the locker room of a former Y.M.C.A., and, returng to the Midwt, the ngenial universy town of Lawrence, Kansas, where he spent his last sixteen years, and where he died, of a heart attack, 1997, at the age of eighty-three. Mil’s always efficient, often elegant prose eas the ri, but a rear’s attentn may grow wan for want of sun. Most of the characters n to type: dissolute quasi-aristocratic iends, terchangeable boys, syphants steadily creasg numbers. Nam para, om Pl Bowl and Samuel Beckett (who, meetg Burroughs at a party Paris, nounced the cut-up method as “plumbg”), through Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol, to Lrie Anrson and Kurt Coba. Most proment is Brn Gys, a medcre artist of lligraphic abstractns. Burroughs met him Tangier, 1955, and bond wh him Paris at a dump the Lat Quarter, known as the Beat Hotel, whose motherly owner adored lerary wanrers.</p><p class="paywall">Gys and Burroughs emed each other clairvoyant geni. They llaborated on cut-ups, extendg the technique to dtape, and foraw mercial gold for Gys’s “Dreamache,” a gizmo that emted flickerg light to dly hypnotic effect. It flopped. Burroughs took to makg art himself, pecially after Gys’s ath, 1986: he created hundreds of pictur, on wood, by shootg at ntaers of pat. The have been wily exhibed and sold. They are terrible. Burroughs had no visual equivalent of the send-nature formaly that buoys even his most chaotic wrg.</p><div data-attr-viewport-monor="le-recirc" class="le-recirc-wrapper le-recirc-observer-target-2 viewport-monor-anchor"></div><p class="paywall">Gsberg off radiantly well Mil’s tellg, as a loyally fivg iend. He tolerated Burroughs’s amatory passn for him, which veloped the fifti, as long as lasted. Much of Burroughs’s bt wrg origated letters to the poet, who took a guidg edorial hand . It was Gsberg who hatched the tle “Naked Lunch,” by a lucky mistake, havg misread the phrase “naked lt” a Burroughs mancript. (I thk of Ezra Pound’s edorial overhl of “He Do the Police Different Voic”—Elt’s first tle for “The Waste Land.”) Gsberg effectively sacrificed his own lerary velopment, which sagged after “Kaddish” (1961), to publicizg his iends and, of urse, himself. Burroughs disparaged his puppylike attendance Bob Dylan’s entourage. (Burroughs’s aloofns, like his obssn wh md ntrol, reflected memori of a reviled uncle, Ivy Ledbetter Lee, a pneerg public-relatns expert whose clients clud John D. Rockefeller and the Nazi Party.) But Burroughs liked his own growg fame. He gave readgs to full ho. Appearanc on “Saturday Night Live,” 1981, and G Van Sant’s “Dgstore Cowboy,” 1989, spread the populary of his gentleman-junkie ol.</p><p class="has-dropp has-dropp__lead-standard-headg paywall">The bgraphy’s most paful passag volve Billy, who both idolized and, for excellent reasons, rented Burroughs. What might you be like, had your father killed your mother and then abandoned you? In 1963, when Billy was sixteen, Burroughs, bowg to his parents’ sistence, briefly took charge of the troubled lad Tangier. The ma event of the vis was Billy’s troductn to dgs, ndoned by Burroughs. In and out of hospals and rehabs, Billy wrote three novels, of which the first, “Speed” (1970), tailg the oral of amphetame addictn, showed lerary promise. In 1976, father and son rned at the Naropa Instute, Boulr, where Gsberg and other poets had iated a program experimental wrg, and where Burroughs was teachg, wh crotchety flair. Billy, who had received a liver transplant for cirrhosis, engaged spectacular self-stctn. Mil wr, “Billy wanted Bill to wns the ms he was ; he was payg him back.” Billy died 1981, at the age of thirty-three. Burroughs seemed to regret only that he had not sufficiently explaed the Ugly Spir to him. He rpond to his son’s ath by varyg his current methadone hab wh a return to hero.</p><p class="paywall">“Virtually all of Burroughs’s wrg was done when he was high on somethg,” Mil wr. The dgs help acunt for the hollowns of his voic, which jabber, joke, and rant like ghosts a ve. He had no voice of his own, but a fantastic ear and verbal rell. His prose is a palimpst of echo, rangg om Elt’s “Prelus” and “Rhapsody on a Wdy Night” (l like “Midnight shak the memory / As a madman shak a ad geranium” are Burroughsian before the fact) to Raymond Chandler’s marmoreal wisecracks and Herbert Huncke’s jive. I spect that few rears have ma all the way through the cut-up novels, but anyone dippg to them may e away hummg phras. His palpable fluence on J. G. Ballard, William Gibson, and Kathy Acker is only the most obv effect of the kd of spiratn that mak a young wrer drop a book and grab a pen, wishg to emulate so sensatnal a sound. It’s a ld thrill. While always ic, Burroughs is rarely funny, unls you’re as tickled as he was by such recurrent lights as boys asm as they are executed by hangg.</p><p class="paywall">Some crics, cludg Mil, have tried to gsy up Burroughs’s antomian moraly as Swiftian satire. Burroughs, however, wag lerary war not on perceptible real-world targets but agast suggtns that anyone is rponsible for anythg. Though never cel his personal nduct, he was, prciple, exasperated wh valu of nstrat. A ltle of “Nothg is te, everythg is permted” go a long way for many rears, cludg me. But there’s no gasayg a splendor as berserk as that of a Hieronym Bosch patg. When you have read Burroughs, at whatever length suffic for you, one flank of your imagatn of human possibily will be vered for good and all. ♦</p></div></div></div><div class="GridItem-buujkM fVLMby grid--em grid-layout__asi"><div class="StickyBoxWrapper-jfYB jxBcTH sticky-box"><div class="StickyBoxPrimary-dzWDWL cdhYoN sticky-box__primary"><div class="AdWrapper-dQtivb fZrssQ ad ad--rail"><div class="ad__slot ad__slot--rail" data-no-id="s3krrp"></div></div><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--display-rail" role="prentatn" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--display-rail"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></div><div class="StickyBoxPlaceholr-grPmrg dxAvXx"></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 PaywallInleBarrierWhWrapperGrid-fyrGfS kLQIUk grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__le-barrier article__body"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"><asi class="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper-iBnuqk lfXXa-D" data-ttid="PaywallInleBarrierWrapper"><div class="ConsumerMarketgUnThemedWrapper-iUTMTf jssHut nsumer-marketg-un nsumer-marketg-un--paywall-le-barrier" role="prentatn" aria-live="pole" aria-hidn="te"><div class="nsumer-marketg-un__slot nsumer-marketg-un__slot--paywall-le-barrier"></div><div class="journey-un"></div></div></asi></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 ContentWrapperGrid-fvkmBv brYtrA grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="body body__ntaer"><div class="ntaer ntaer--body"><div class="ntaer--body-ner"></div></div></div></div></div></div></article><div class="ContentFooterWrapper-jVNdRG dTJkpP ArticlePageContentFooterGrid-ccsXYy eMZRHU article-body__footer"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><footer class="ContentFooterMagazeDisclaimer-gzKAqo iZIuUU" data-ttid="MagazeDisclaimerWrapper">Published the prt edn of the <a href="/magaze/2014/02/03" data-reactroot="">Febary 3, 2014</a>, issue.</footer></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div class="ContributorsWrapper-eNpWFu GWFsc ntributors" data-ttid="Contributors"><div class="ContributorBWrapper-bnVHbt gMon"><div class="ContributorBAvatar-bIGTqf eMWbvj"><a href="/ntributors/peter-schjeldahl"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW jvZaPI rponsive-asset"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa rponsive-image"><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></picture></span></a></div><div class="ContributorBContent-ubQdr jZTSSi"><div class="ContributorBHear-ledood XOIEx"></div><div class="ContributorBB-fBolsO giFhKz"><a href="/ntributors/peter-schjeldahl">Peter Schjeldahl</a> was The New Yorker’s longtime art cric until his ath, 2022, at the age of eighty. He joed the magaze as a staff wrer 1998.</div><div class="ContributorBFooter-brqDlv ezUmSv"></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="RowWrapper-UmqTg HEhan"><div class="GridWrapper-cAzTTK kHBDeH grid grid-margs grid-ems-2 grid-layout--adrail narrow wi-adrail"><div class="GridItem-buujkM stRKV grid--em grid-layout__ntent"><div data-ttid="TagCloudWrapper" class="TagCloudWrapper-gGgndx ctyZyK ContentFooterTagCloud-krQmRG ZLGh"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudSectnHear-cOforY iUEiRd bPyAoD kQQRmu">More:</span><a href="/tag/allen-gsberg" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Allen Gsberg</span></a><a href="/tag/beat-generatn" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Beat Generatn</span></a><a href="/tag/bgraphi" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Bgraphi</span></a><a href="/tag/books" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Books</span></a><a href="/tag/centenari" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Centenari</span></a><a href="/tag/dgs" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Dgs</span></a><a href="/tag/gays-homosexuals" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Gays (Homosexuals)</span></a><a href="/tag/grove-prs" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Grove Prs</span></a><a href="/tag/jack-kerouac" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Jack Kerouac</span></a><a href="/tag/mary-mcrthy" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">Mary McCarthy</span></a><a href="/tag/t-s-elt" class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BaseLk-eNWuiM TagCloudLk-kvjZFu iUEiRd ggMZaT gFob hIhJOI"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ TagCloudName-eAUnLd iUEiRd gwIVBQ bUkXwu">T. 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BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Renata Adler</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em summary-em--article summary-em--no-in summary-em--text-align-left summary-em--layout-placement-text-below-sktop-only summary-em--layout-posn-image-right summary-em--layout-proportns-33-66 summary-em--si-by-si-align-center summary-em--si-by-si-image-right-mobile-false summary-em--standard SummaryCollectnGridSummaryItem-WColm eamwqR" role="button" tabx="0"><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/10/20/zen-master" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR 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href="/magaze/2008/10/20/zen-master" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Zen Master</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg summary-em__asset-ntaer"><a class="SummaryItemImageLk-dshqxb USLvL summary-em__image-lk summary-em-trackg__image-lk" href="/magaze/2008/10/20/zen-master" aria-hidn="te" tabx="-1" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-image-2" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" target="_self"><span class="SpanWrapper-umhxW kGxnNB rponsive-asset SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image"><div data-tt="aspect-rat-ntaer" class="AspectRatContaer-bJHpJz jMoLpX"><div class="aspect-rat--overlay-ntaer"><picture class="RponsiveImagePicture-cWuUZO dUOtEa SummaryItemRponsiveAsset-hjGIGg egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Zen Master" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ SummaryItemDek-CRfsi iUEiRd jxOIpm cPtisA summary-em__k">Gary Snyr and the art of life.</div><div class="SummaryItemByleWrapper-boCfbi hYsZi summary-em__byle-date-in"><div class="SummaryItemBaseByle-fFbXkY cgDBtc summary-em__byle"><div class="summary-em__byle__ntent"><div data-ttid="BylWrapper" class="BylWrapper-KIudk irTIfE byl"><p class="ByleWrapper-jWHrLH dSEWiO byle byl__byle" data-ttid="ByleWrapper" emProp="thor" emType="><span emProp="name" class="ByleNamWrapper-jbHncj fuDQVo"><span data-ttid="ByleName" class="ByleName-kwmrLn cYaBaU byle__name"><span class="BaseWrap-sc-gjQpdd BaseText-ewhhUZ BylePreamble-iJolpQ iUEiRd jslZfG gnILss byle__preamble">By </span>Dana Goodyear</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="SummaryItemWrapper-iwvBff hlYhBH summary-em 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egpoQR summary-em__image rponsive-image"><noscript><source media="(max-width: 767px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w, 640w" siz="100vw"/><source media="(m-width: 768px)" srcSet=" 120w, 240w, 320w" siz="100vw"/><img alt="Drive, He Wrote" class="RponsiveImageContaer-eybHBd fptoWY rponsive-image__image" src="></noscript></picture></div></div></span></a></div><div class="SummaryItemContent-eiDYMl ldWYvC summary-em__ntent"><div class="RubricWrapper-dKmCNX kImuKS bric bric--disvery SummaryItemRubric-dguGKN fYiFyD summary-em__bric"><span class="RubricName-fVtemz cLxcNi">A Cric at Large</span></div><a class="SummaryItemHedLk-civM cZPaWG summary-em-trackg__hed-lk summary-em__hed-lk" data-ponent-type="recirc-river" data-recirc-id="em-hed-3" data-recirc-pattern="summary-em" href="/magaze/2007/10/01/drive-he-wrote" target="_self"><div class="SummaryItemHedBase-hiFYpQ iIjKeM summary-em__hed" data-ttid="SummaryItemHed">Drive, He Wrote</div></a><div class="SummaryItemAssetContaer-gwhFFH VOyg 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