Book description
A controversial reworking of well-trodden American myth by the author
of 'Naked Lunch'.
This surreal fable, set in America's Old West, features a cast of
notorious characters: The Crying Gun, who breaks into tears at the sight
of his opponent; The Priest, who goes into gunfights giving his
adversaries the last rites; and The Nihilistic Kid himself, Kim Carson,
who, with a succession of beautiful sidekicks, sets out to challenge the
morality of small-town America.
Fantastical and humorous, 'The Place of Dead Roads' continues William
Burroughs' exploration of society's controlling forces - the State, the
Church, women, literature, drugs - with a style that is utterly unique
in twentieth-century literature. 'It's a comedy and a nightmare of
Bosch-like visions, extraordinarily precise vivid visualisations,
outrageous ideas like mind bombs.' Allen Ginsberg
'"The Place of Dead Roads" is Burroughs at his very best,
with the same remarkable ear for dialogue and effortless originality.' Guardian
'The most radical innovator in fiction since Joyce.' Angela Carter
'Burroughs has a paranoid vision, but as he himself said: the psychotic
is someone who knows what's really going on.' J. G. Ballard, Sunday
Times William Burroughs was born in St Louis, Missouri in 1914.
Immensely influential among the Beat writers of the 1950s - notably Jack
Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg - he already had an underground reputation
before the appearance of his first important book, 'Naked Lunch'.
Originally published by the daring and influential Olympia Press (the
original publishers of Henry Miller) in France in 1959, it aroused great
controversy on publication and was not available in the US until 1962
and in the UK until 1964. The book was adapted for film by David
Cronenberg in 1991. William Burroughs died in 1997.
