Appreciation #1

“William Burroughs” by D.C. Miller

ALL-TIME AMERICAN WRITERS TOURNAMENT

The most cerebral of post-war American writers, William S. Burroughs belongs to the tradition of literary rebels and exiles, and perhaps was its last representative. Only his earliest books fall under the definition of novels, but he invented a new kind of writing, a form of anti-novel, or theory-fiction, conceived in terms closer to deprogramming then self-expression. With a typewriter, a needle and an independent income, Burroughs stood apart from mainstream society, observing it with an unflinching gaze. From Naked Lunch through the Nova Trilogy his work describes a search for escape. He states his own position in the introduction to Queer. “What are you rewriting? A lifelong preoccupation with Control and Virus. Having gained access the virus uses the host’s energy, blood, flesh and bones to make copies of itself. Model of dogmatic insistence never never from without was screaming in my ear, “YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!”

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D.C. Miller’s twitter address is @dctv_od