Barry miles william burroughs biography of william
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William S. Burroughs - A Life
You can see my review of his Naked Lunch here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
The premise of the biography is that there was in a sense a demonic possession in Burroughs' personality, whether you take that literally or not, and that his entire life's work can be seen as a canvas upon which he struggled with it. In his writing he deliberately tried to maintain a rather sardonic authorial voice, cruel and without pity, but, just under the surface there always a pursuit of candor and a rage against cruelty and oppression. He was brilliant and paranoid, abused all manner of drugs and alcohol and attempted to live a very unconventional and open gay lifestyle at a time when such things were usually unspoken. Even when he bought boyfriends he tended to fall madly in love with them
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William S. Burroughs: A Life
William S. Burroughs, A Life (UK edition):
London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014
Introduction to the W.S.B. journal:
Call Me Burroughs, a Life, was published on February 5, 2014, the 100th anniversary of Bill’s birth. The authorized biography was originally commissioned by Grove Press in New York in 1999 from James Grauerholz, the man who knows more about Burroughs than anyone else on earth. He was Bill’s friend and confidante for 23 years, he was Bill’s adopted son and now, after Bill’s death is his heir and the executor of his estate. James did a phenomenal amount of research, and wrote a number of research papers that I have drawn heavily upon, including Burroughs in Chicago – the wartime period –The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs, an almost book-length study, looking at every scrap of detail and reporting on all and every angle. He also wrote another carefully researched stu
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Burroughs Log
Call Me Burroughs
Introduction
I have been working on the research for Call Me Burroughs, an authorized biography of William S. Burroughs for some time now. The idea is to publish it on February 5, 2014, the 100th anniversary of Bill’s birth. The authorized biography was originally commissioned by Grove Press in New York in 1999 from James Grauerholz, the man who knows more about Burroughs than anyone else on earth. He was Bill’s friend and confident for 23 years, he was Bill’s adopted son and now, after Bill’s death is his heir and the executor of his estate. James did a phenomenal amount of research, and wrote a number of research papers that I have drawn heavily upon, including Burroughs in Chicago – the wartime period – The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs, an almost book-length study, looking at every scrap of detail and reporting on all and every angle. He also wrote another carefully researched study of Bill’s childhood in St. Louis and his family backgr