Ghost of Chance (High Risk Books) - Softcover

Burroughs, William

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1852424575 ISBN 13: 9781852424572

Publisher: Serpent's Tail, 2002

Synopsis

Ghost of Chance is an adventure story set in the jungle of Madagascar and filled with the obsessions that mark the work of the man who Norman Mailer once called, ‘the only American writer possessed by genius.’ While tripping through the author's trademark concerns—drugs, paranoia, and lemurs, this short novel tells an important story about environmental devastation in a way that only Burroughs can.

Born in 1914, William S. Burroughs is the author of Junky, Naked Lunch and The Soft Machine and many other contemporary classics. A major figure of 20th century American literature, Burroughs died in 1997.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in 1914, William S. Burroughs is the author of Junky, Naked Lunch,The Soft Machine, The Ticket That Exploded and many other novels. A major figure of 20th Century American literature, Burroughs died in 1997.

From Publishers Weekly:

Burroughs (My Education: A Book of Dreams) turns 81 this year, but, much to the delight of loyal readers, his latest fiction continues to display a febrile imagination, corrosive wit and edgy desolation recalling his preeminent early work. This peculiar, short volume is a whimsical hodgepodge, interweaving, among other matters, a natural history of Madagascar; a jeremiad for the environment; a colonial adventure and a takeoff on the Book of Revelations. It opens as Captain Mission, an 18th-century pirate, founds Libertatia, a utopian colony on Madagascar dedicated to protecting the indigenous landscape and lemur population (lemurs are known by island natives as "ghosts"). When international bureaucrats conspire to decimate the colony, overpopulate the island and plunder its flora and fauna ("the Garden of Lost Chances," preserved for 160 million years since the island split from mainland Africa), a series of fantastic, ancient plagues are released, destroying much of the earth. This strange and fragmented story presents?in supple prose that requires no parental advisory?an environmentalist twist to Burroughs's quintessential theme: the cosmic struggle between bureaucratic Control and the embattled, individual soul.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1852424575
• ISBN 13: 9781852424572
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96