William S. Burroughs

Description

Books such as Naked Lunch have established William S. Burroughs (1914- 1997) as an iconic figure of the Beat generation. In William S. Burroughs Phil Baker investigates this cult writer's life and work, and his self-portrayal as an explorer of inner space, reporting back from the frontiers of experience. Burroughs's theories on dreams and subjective time travel are explored, as well as his visions of drug states as places and a Gnostic liberation beyond time and existence.

Phil Baker's previous books include a critical study of Samuel Beckett and a cultural history of absinthe.

"Obviously researched with some thoroughness, Baker's finely cut biography of Burroughs hits the spot as well as Burroughs once did in an infamous episode he was involved with down in Mexico City. . . . For all the often nightmarish twists of events in Burroughs life, he is a biographer's dream. This biography comes up trumps where grander, better placed ones have come up short. The precise, condensed style makes for a fast moving read."-- "Beat Scene" "Baker's book is an excellent introduction." -- "Stride Magazine" "Baker's vivid critical study of the Beat novelist Burroughs zings with the same energy and humor as his subject's fiction. Judiciously matching the biography to the books, Baker follows Burroughs's peregrinations from his relationship with Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in New York, to Mexico, where he accidentally shot dead his wife, and eventually to Tangier, where he wrote his best-known work, The Naked Lunch. A literary life that is as entertaining as it is indispensable as a guide to Burroughs's writing." -- "Sunday Times" "Lucid and readable . . . manages to pick its through way through most of Burroughs's major motivations and curious obsessions, and serves as a good introductory text for general readers, as well as a model of concision for Beat aficionados. Repeatedly, in various ways, it asks: just what possessed Burroughs?" --Times Literary Supplement -- "TLS"