Overview

‘Where are the snows of yesteryear. And the speedballs I useta know? Well, I guess it’s time for my Ovaltine and a long good night.’ In 1996 William Burroughs began writing a final journal. He died the following summer after a life of notoriety: godfather of the Beat writers, author of thirteen controversial novels, druggy, dangerous and bleak. Spanning the realms of personal memoir, cultural criticism and fiction, Burroughs’ diaries include anecdotes and memories, entries on his beloved cats and the joys of housekeeping, and musings on drug-taking, humanity and government cover-ups. ‘Last Words’ contains some of the most brutally personal prose in the William Burroughs canon, and the deaths of his friends, Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary, provide a window onto his own preparations for death – a quest for absolution marked by a profound sense of guilt and loss.

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9780007341948

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Reviews

'He is a writer of enormous richness whose books are a kind of attempt to blow up this cosy conspiracy, to allow us to see the truth.' JG Ballard 'At eighty-three, Burroughs was living in a two-bedroom cottage in Lawrence, Kansas, with his menagerie of cats. After taking his daily dose of methadone in the morning -- he became readdicted in New York in 1980 -- he spent the afternoons reading and writing right up until his death in August 1997. Last Words collects these daily jottings in his notebooks, the entire literary output from the last nine months of his life!With only the love of his cats, literature and methadone left, these journals make for unbearably poignant reading. Unlikely as it may sound, Bill Burroughs was only human after all.' The Times Praise for William Burroughs: 'Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.' Jack Kerouac 'Burroughs' voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American, a voice in which one hears transistor radios and old movies and all the cliches and all the cons and all the newspapers, all the peculiar optimism, all the failure.' Joan Didion 'The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius' Norman Mailer 'In the English language, William Burroughs is the greatest writer alive. His imagination has tackled head-on the post-war world, with its huge bureaucracies and sinister complexes. He has a paranoid vision, but as he himself said: the psychotic is someone who knows what's really going on.' JG Ballard, Sunday Times 'William Burroughs broadened people's conception of what makes humanity. In that way, he really was an American hero, a hero writer, and also just a great man.' Lou Reed 'With his canes, suits and absurd fedoras, William S. Burroughs was the dandy manque who invented geek chic and made modernism available to the hippie masses!Now that Burroughs' final journals have been published, edited by his companion and literary executor, James Grauerholz, a comprehensive sense of the man and his achievement, for better and for worse, is at last available. Grauerholz's introduction and notes are a fine mixture of fact and feeling, and make Last Words a synthetic whole!The journals are an exploration in depth, and in sum, of Burroughs' personality and creative pre-occupations![A] rich repetition, with variations, of a string of half-conscious fancies, scenarios and literary allusions. Last Words also presents fresh clues to the larger design of his imagination, and a means of gaining a renewed perspective on his work.' New York Times ' Where is the cavalry, the spaceship, the rescue squad? asked William Burroughs on May 26 1997. He didn't realize that it was on its way: three months later, he was dead! Last Words reveals the author of Naked Lunch riddled with arthritis and still saddled with guilt for shooting his common-law wife in 1951. Although he seems more vulnerable than ever before, the anti-establishment anger continues to flare up at odd moments, his skewed sense of humour still sends out sparks.' Time Out 'There's a savage glamour about William Burroughs, both in his writing and his life! Last Words , made during the last nine months of his life, shows him to be as sharp-minded as ever.' Ham & High 'The entries in Last Words were made as Burroughs came to terms with his impending demise, and they are at once elegiac and filled with a curious kind of contentment at the way things have turned out. For the first and only time, he reveals a gentler self, full of years and filled with grace. He was a great American writer to the end.' Gay Times 'A fascinating read. A mixture of the insane, the inane, and the startlingly perceptive, they at first appear to be no more than the uncontrolled effluvium of a mad junkie's mind. But then, suddenly, one begins to see a pattern, as if the smashed fragments of a mosaic still discernibly keep a memory of their proper arrangement!Burroughs surfaces among his words as a bent, acute, watchful, irritated, clever old man, like a sparkling eye peering out from the greasy broken panes of a dilapidated building. Occasional lines and phrases catch one's breath.' Financial Times ' Last Words is filled with memories and reminiscences delivered in staccato poignancy. Burroughs cuts up his recollections and dreams, merging, always playfully, sometimes painfully, fact with fiction!A welcome addition to the extensive Burroughs oeuvre.' Scotsman

'He is a writer of enormous richness whose books are a kind of attempt to blow up this cosy conspiracy, to allow us to see the truth.' JG Ballard 'At eighty-three, Burroughs was living in a two-bedroom cottage in Lawrence, Kansas, with his menagerie of cats. After taking his daily dose of methadone in the morning -- he became readdicted in New York in 1980 -- he spent the afternoons reading and writing right up until his death in August 1997. Last Words collects these daily jottings in his notebooks, the entire literary output from the last nine months of his life!With only the love of his cats, literature and methadone left, these journals make for unbearably poignant reading. Unlikely as it may sound, Bill Burroughs was only human after all.' The Times Praise for William Burroughs: 'Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.' Jack Kerouac 'Burroughs' voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American, a voice in which one hears transistor radios and old movies and all the cliches and all the cons and all the newspapers, all the peculiar optimism, all the failure.' Joan Didion 'The only American novelist who may conceivably be possessed by genius' Norman Mailer 'In the English language, William Burroughs is the greatest writer alive. His imagination has tackled head-on the post-war world, with its huge bureaucracies and sinister complexes. He has a paranoid vision, but as he himself said: the psychotic is someone who knows what's really going on.' JG Ballard, Sunday Times 'William Burroughs broadened people's conception of what makes humanity. In that way, he really was an American hero, a hero writer, and also just a great man.' Lou Reed 'With his canes, suits and absurd fedoras, William S. Burroughs was the dandy manque who invented geek chic and made modernism available to the hippie masses!Now that Burroughs' final journals have been published, edited by his companion and literary executor, James Grauerholz, a comprehensive sense of the man and his achievement, for better and for worse, is at last available. Grauerholz's introduction and notes are a fine mixture of fact and feeling, and make Last Words a synthetic whole!The journals are an exploration in depth, and in sum, of Burroughs' personality and creative pre-occupations![A] rich repetition, with variations, of a string of half-conscious fancies, scenarios and literary allusions. Last Words also presents fresh clues to the larger design of his imagination, and a means of gaining a renewed perspective on his work.' New York Times ' Where is the cavalry, the spaceship, the rescue squad? asked William Burroughs on May 26 1997. He didn't realize that it was on its way: three months later, he was dead! Last Words reveals the author of Naked Lunch riddled with arthritis and still saddled with guilt for shooting his common-law wife in 1951. Although he seems more vulnerable than ever before, the anti-establishment anger continues to flare up at odd moments, his skewed sense of humour still sends out sparks.' Time Out 'There's a savage glamour about William Burroughs, both in his writing and his life! Last Words , made during the last nine months of his life, shows him to be as sharp-minded as ever.' Ham & High 'The entries in Last Words were made as Burroughs came to terms with his impending demise, and they are at once elegiac and filled with a curious kind of contentment at the way things have turned out. For the first and only time, he reveals a gentler self, full of years and filled with grace. He was a great American writer to the end.' Gay Times 'A fascinating read. A mixture of the insane, the inane, and the startlingly perceptive, they at first appear to be no more than the uncontrolled effluvium of a mad junkie's mind. But then, suddenly, one begins to see a pattern, as if the smashed fragments of a mosaic still discernibly keep a memory of their proper arrangement!Burroughs surfaces among his words as a bent, acute, watchful, irritated, clever old man, like a sparkling eye peering out from the greasy broken panes of a dilapidated building. Occasional lines and phrases catch one's breath.' Financial Times ' Last Words is filled with memories and reminiscences delivered in staccato poignancy. Burroughs cuts up his recollections and dreams, merging, always playfully, sometimes painfully, fact with fiction!A welcome addition to the extensive Burroughs oeuvre.' Scotsman

Author Information

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’. William Burroughs died in 1997.

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