Interzone - Hardcover

Burroughs, William S.

3.74

1,856 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670813478 ISBN 13: 9780670813476

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1989

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In 1954 William Burroughs settled in Tangiers, finding a sanctuary of sorts in its shadowy streets, blind alleys, and lowlife decadence. It was this city that served as a catalyst for Burroughs as a writer, the backdrop for one of the most radical transformations of style in literary history.

Burroughs's life during this period is limned in a startling collection of short stories, autobiographical sketches, letters, and diary entries, all of which showcase his trademark mordant humor, while delineating the addictions to drugs and sex that are the central metaphors of his work. But it is the extraordinary "WORD," a long, sexually wild and deliberately offensive tirade, that blends confession, routine, and fantasy and marks the true turning point of Burroughs as a writer-the breakthrough of his own characteristic voice that will find its full realization in Naked Lunch. James Grauerholz's incisive introduction sets the scene for this series of pieces, guiding the reader through Burroughs's literary evolution from the precise, laconic, and deadpan writer of Junky and Queer to the radical, uncompromising seer of Naked Lunch. Interzone is an indispensable addition to the canon of his works.

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About the Author:

William S. Burroughs was born on February 5, 1914 in St Louis. In work and in life Burroughs expressed a lifelong subversion of the morality, politics and economics of modern America. To escape those conditions, and in particular his treatment as a homosexual and a drug-user, Burroughs left his homeland in 1950, and soon after began writing. By the time of his death he was widely recognised as one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the twentieth century. His numerous books include Naked Lunch, Junky, Queer, Nova Express, Interzone, The Wild Boys, The Ticket That Exploded and The Soft Machine. After living in Mexico City, Tangier, Paris, and London, Burroughs finally returned to America in 1974. He died in 1997.

From Publishers Weekly:

Burroughs seems to grow ever more trite with the passage of time, his rebellion against society a lame thing. Fans will probably enjoy this fragmentary collection of letters, journal entries, stories and autobiographical sketches from the mid-1950s. In style the pieces range from straightforward sociological descriptions of Tangier, where he has dope and young boys, to Kafkaesque fables ("Dream of the Penal Colony") to surreal, manic pastiche. In another story, the protagonist cuts off the joint of his little finger, then pops into his psychiatrist's office and makes light of his condition. The centerpiece is "WORD," a long, hitherto unpublished section from the working manuscript ( Interzone ) that eventually became the novel Naked Lunch. Rediscovered in 1984, "WORD" is a hipster's incoherent cosmic rant, sexually wild and often deliberately offensive. Burroughs's sense that we are all specters in a waking nightmare, so dominant in his recent fiction, is prefigured here in a futuristic sketch of a nameless U.S. city wracked by forces of evil and repression.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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