The Road To
Interzone
Reading William S. Burroughs Reading
Michael Stevens
2004
The Road To Interzone
Prefatory Remarks
Introduction
Documentation
Part One: Literary Pronouncements & Reading References
Notes
Part Two: Introductions & Forewords
Part Three: The Blurbs
Part Four: Books in the Ohio State University Archives
Part Five: Books from The Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archives.
Part Six: Lawrence, Kansas Library
Appendices
A. Photographs
B. Naropa List of Neglected Works (photocopy)
C. Granta Anthology of Deathless Prose Table of Contents (photocopy)
D. List of Lawrence, KS library, shelf location of books, and items on the shelves (photocopy)
Works Cited
Index
Documentation
Part One
The following is a key to the chronological references within section one of this work. Immediately after the bibliographical description, if any, will follow a letter within parenthesis. If the entry is just an author then the letter will follow directly after the author’s name. This letter indicates when Burroughs first became familiar with the work or the author. If known this information will be indicated according to the chart below, if unknown there will be no letter.
Chronological Key
A. Childhood (1914-1932) St. Louis, Los Alamos
B. College Years (1932-1940) Harvard, Columbia, NYC
C. War Years (1940-1946) St. Louis, Chicago, NY
D. Southern Travels (1946-1953) Texas, New Orleans, Mexico City,
South America
E. NAKED LUNCH (1954-1960) Tangier, Paris
F. Cut-Ups (1960-1973) London
G. The Bunker (1974-1981) NYC & Boulder
H. Lawrence (1981-1997) Lawrence
Thanks to James Grauerholz for the above chronological key. I have retitled some of the time periods but it mostly stands in his original format.
After some entries will follow a number in parenthesis. This number indicates an endnote. Please look to the back of the book for the endnote section and then the appropriate number. These notes help you to not experience a great deal of repetition and will also provide for you, most of the time, the raw information from which I have based my analysis if any.
Title Abbreviations
AG&F Allen Ginsberg & Friends
AGDP Allen Ginsberg Deliberate Prose
AGP Allen Ginsberg Photographs
AGSM Allen Ginsberg Spontaneous Mind
AM Adding Machine
ANSEN William Burroughs
APIH Ah Pook Is Here
ASNS Ali’s Smile and Naked Scientology
BF The Burroughs File
BG Brion Gysin Let the Mice In
BL Burroughs Live
BOB Book of Breeething
BOBG The Birth of the Beat Generation
BOL2 Book of Lists #2
BV Beat Vision
CG Cobblestone Gardens
COTRN Cities of the Red Night
CWWB Conversations With William Burroughs
DP Disembodied Poetics
EX Exterminator!
FHA Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
GOC Ghost of Chance
IZ Interzone
JW Journal Wired
LAG Letters To Allen Ginsberg
LIW Living In Words
LO Literary Outlaw
LW Last Words
LWSB The Letters of William S. Burroughs
MB Memory Babe
ME My Education
MILES El Hombre Invisible
MKA My Kind of Angel
NE Nova Express
NL Naked Lunch
PAG Painting and Guns
PODR The Place of Dead Roads
POS Port of Saints
RAI Roosevelt After Inaguration
ROCF Review of Contemporary Fiction
SDS The Seven Deadly Sins
SM The Soft Machine
TCI The Cat Inside
TJ The Job
TPNI Talking Poetics From Naropa Institute
TTM The Third Mind
TTTE The Ticket That Exploded
TWL The Western Lands
WB The Wild Boys
WBSF William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination
WSB Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive
WSBAF William S. Burroughs At The Front
WWB With William Burroughs
For bibliographical information please see “Works Cited” at the end of this book.
Part Two
In the Introductions, Forewords, etc... section any relationship between the author and William Burroughs will be stated if known. This portion of the book will list all books known to the author which Burroughs contributed introductions, forewords, etc...
Part Three
The blurbs section will also mention any known relationship between the author and Burroughs
just as in Part Two. This portion of the book will list all books to which Burroughs contributed blurbs.
Part Four
This section consists of the books listed by John Bennet in his finding aids as well as the catalogue entitled Avante Garde Wave One, edited and compiled by Mr. Bennet for the Ohio State Archives where much of Burroughs work is now stored. I have only included books that were part of William Burroughs’ personal library. I have not listed photographs, manuscripts, books by Burroughs, letters, or anything else housed at the Ohio State archives.
Part Five
This section brings together the books from Burroughs library listed in the Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive, edited by Barry Miles and published in a limited edition in 1973.
This collection is now in the hands of the private collector, Robert Jackson. As in Part Four, I have only listed the books from Burroughs library. I have not listed photographs, manuscripts, books by Burroughs, letters, or anything else from this collection.
Part Six
Part Six is the first publication of the books Mr. Burroughs owned at the time of his death. All books were from his Lawrence, Kansas library. I have stated if the book was a gift or if the book was annotated. I have not included books by Burroughs that he owned. For a look at Burroughs’ mysterious shelving habits please see Appendix D where the shelf location of the books as well as items found on the bookshelves has been documented.
Appendices
Appendix A is a collection of photographs of Burroughs and/or his library. Appendix B is a photocopy of the Naropa List of Neglected Works which was a reading list handed out by Burroughs when he was teaching at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, Fall 1976. Appendix C is a letter from James Grauerholz sent to the author with a list of the books to be included in the Granta Anthology of Deathless Prose. The idea behind the anthology was to collect Burroughs favorite passages from his favorite books. The project was canceled. This list was the projected Table of Contents for that book. Appendix D is a list of the Lawrence, Kansas library with shelf locations, and items on the shelves at the time of Burroughs death.
Introduction
Why is a book like this necessary? I think it’s appropriate to begin with a question. Why is it important? Who’s to say that it is? Certainly not the author. I don’t want to answer those two questions right away. I would like to start with a simple narrative that comes not from the mind of a scholar or a writer but one that comes from memory. Dim jerky far away memory. In 1995 I met William S. Burroughs. The meeting and the circumstances in which it occurred are relevant to the questions posed above but we’ll take it slow and get to the punch soon enough. The meeting took place in Lawrence, Kansas at Burroughs’ house. I had sent the author a painting inspired by his and his collaborator Brion Gysin’s calligraphic style. It wasn’t long before I received a note from Jim McCrary, one of William’s assistants saying that he was taking the piece to Burroughs that afternoon. Needless to say I was thrilled to hear it.
A couple of weeks later I received a letter from Burroughs himself praising the work. He claimed that it “indicates a future where the viewer is given a screen in which he can see many different images in three-dimensions.” I couldn’t believe it. I wrote him back and began a correspondence about the Stendhal syndrome (a condition that was named after the French writer Stendhal, who experienced dizziness and faint spells upon viewing the art in Florence), art, and accupressure. Burroughs probably would have called it a couple of letters, but I like to call it a correspondence. In the last letter he gave me his home address and let me know that if I ever came through Lawrence I should stop by.
I’m not sure how serious he was but I certainly was and I wasn’t going to pass up that opportunity. It wasn’t long at all before I contacted Burroughs Communications to let them know I was coming into town. The fellow I spoke to didn’t seem too excited to hear about my visit but I had a letter from the master with an invitation so I didn’t let that put me off. It was August when I arrived and on August 21, 1995, exactly 132 years to the day that William Quantrill rolled into Lawrence with a very different mission, I turned onto Learnard Avenue.
At 9:30 a.m. I opened the gate and walked up to the front door of 1927 Learnard. Prior to that moment I had spent at least an hour at Dillons, the supermarket down the street, trying to figure out what to bring him. Believe it or not I decided on irises. When I finally did get to the door I knocked hesitantly and felt an impending doom that I had never felt before. I think that was the beginning of what most people now call an anxiety attack. I didn’t call it anything. The door opened slowly and there he was. In a bathrobe he looked at me and said, “Hello...” I said, “Good morning Mr. Burroughs my name is Mike Stevens and I wanted to bring you some irises and say thanks for all the good work.” I didn’t know
what else to say. It seemed to me like a fair introduction.
He stepped out on the porch and said, “Mike Stevens...mmm...the artist?” The artist? It wasn’t panic that I felt, maybe just a loss of words. “I paint a little. But I mainly just wanted to say thank you.” He was wearing a bathrobe, he was frail, and he was missing the last joint of one of his pinky fingers. As a fan I knew he was thin and I knew about the finger incident but it’s different in reality isn’t it? His eyes were penetrating and there was a gentleness that was overwhelmingly unexpected.
I’ve been asked what he looked like and I think that’s a reasonable question but I can only give a very predictable answer, he looked like William Burroughs. He appeared exactly as I had expected he would yet it was as if I had never seen a picture of him before and the playing field was leveled. Here we were and I knew nothing more of him than he knew of me. He told me that irises were his favorite (he was being polite) and we talked for about fifteen minutes. I can’t remember anything we talked about that morning. He informed me that if I liked I could return at 3:30 for tea. I thanked him for the invitation and got out of there as quickly as I could without an uncomfortable exit.
After spending the day in Lawrence going to bookstores, thrift shops, and drinking Turkish coffee on Mass I went back to Learnard Avenue and approached dread door once again arriving right on the dot. The house was red and smelled of paint. Something I had not noticed before. I also noticed cat bowls and a sticker on the window or door that informed the fire department to remove his cats in case of an emergency. I must have been blinded a bit ago unless all of this happened in the past six hours. I knocked and this time a fellow called Brad answered the door. He was probably in his early twenties and he asked me who I was. I told him my name and he said he would get William. Seconds later Burroughs shuffled over and directed me into the house. “Come on in... come on in.” He offered me a seat at the table in the front room. “Have a seat Mike Stevens.” He seated himself next to me in a wheelchair.
Brad asked me if I’d like anything to drink and I glanced over at Burroughs who was nursing a tumbler of vodka and Coke. I said I would have some tea. I was given some options and I went with the orange spice. I knew what that tumbler was and I knew I needed to remain clear headed for what was about to come. The smell of sweet grass incense permeated the paint and there were cats everywhere. I recognized some of the kitties from pictures. A painting by Brion Gysin on the wall was enough to bring me into the present more than anything thing else I could see. I soon learned that Calico Jane liked me because she sat in my lap most of the time. Burroughs said, “She liiikes youuu...” We talked for awhile about writing, books, his cats, and painting. Mostly in the beginning we talked about cats.
It looked like Burroughs was wearing dr scholls shoes and blue jeans, a nice button down shirt and like a gentleman no hat indoors of course. “Are you in school?” I said I was in school and was studying writing and composition. “I don’t know if that can be taught. Creative writing that is. Don’t be a writer.” He told me that the life of a writer is not as glamorous as it might sound. Paul Bowles came up.
He caught me looking at the Gysin and said, “That’s a painting by Brion Gysin. The only man I ever respected.” I knew what it was but listened because I wanted to hear him tell me. He would periodically call out, “Look at you little beast. What’s wrong? Why are you crying? What is wrong? Braaad... Has she eaten?” “She pissed in the vent earlier. Little bitch. Made the whole house smell like it.” I told him that it didn’t smell bad. He then continued about the smell saying that it was made worse from the house paint and that he had recently had some painters out who were a real pain.
After awhile another visitor showed up. Burroughs looked up and said, “It’s Bill.” Brad answered the door and I was introduced to William S. Lyon, the author of Black Elk and one of the contributor’s and editor’s of Shaman’s Drum magazine. Lyon and Burroughs got along very well and it was a pleasure to have him there as Burroughs bounced off what I guess were real life routines. I had heard about it and I was now seeing it and hearing it with my own eyes and ears. They talked about a boy they both knew who had been killed by a bull in a bullfight in Mexico. They discussed how unfair it was for the bull and Burroughs laughed and giggled (yes, he giggled) at the fact that the boy had been killed by the bull when it gorged him. He went into some detail which was graphic and unrestrained as one might expect. “Gorged him real good.” Lyon had a copy of The Ticket That Exploded that he wanted Burroughs to sign. As he went about it Burroughs talked about shamanism, healing, and that bull. (I later crossed paths with Lyon in 2000 on ebay when he was selling that copy of The Ticket That Exploded which I couldn’t afford. It was inscribed to him and said, “To William S. Lyon, Be Careful of Disaffected Shaman. William S. Burroughs, August 21, 1995.” I did get his copy of New York Inside Out, but it wasn’t the same.)
At one point Lyon asked Burroughs if he still had his copy of True Hallucinations. Burroughs said he didn’t know where it was. Lyon said he needed it because another friend of his wanted to read the book. After batting it around for a little bit Burroughs animatedly scuttled around in and out of rooms without the wheelchair and without a cane looking for it. He finally came back to the living room while Lyon was in the kitchen, sat down next to me and said, “I can’t find it... Scout’s honor.” I believed him until I saw the trace of a smirk on his lips.
William Burroughs, William Lyon, and Burroughs’ cats and I had had a great afternoon as far as I was concerned and I excused myself after about an hour an a half, which I thought would be a good enough time not to wear out my welcome. “Well, would you like anything else to drink? Anything for me to sign?” I told him I had Ghost of Chance out in the car. I had just bought it at Terra Nova earlier in the day. “Umm... I didn’t know it was available yet. If you’d like to go get it I can sign it for you.” I went out to the car, grabbed the book and made my way back into his house (and letting yourself in to Burroughs’ house is pretty fun.) “This is a nice picture on the back here. I remember that shoot.” He inscribed it for me and that book, one of the least valuable of my signed copies is the most valuable book to me in my collection today.
I thanked him for the afternoon, the tea, the stories, and for the inscription. “Oh...Thank you for the irises and the conversation.” I reached to shake his hand and believe it or not, he hugged me. This is something I usually leave out of the story because I think it makes it unbelievable but this time I’m including it. He hugged me. It didn’t seem in his character but it seemed appropriate and it happened. I thanked him again and he asked me about the trip, “How long did it take you to get here?” “About ten hours,” “Fast driver, usually takes longer than that to get to Dallas. Don’t drive so fast.” As I walked away he said, “Via con Dios!” I smiled and waved and got into the car. After buckling up, lighting a cigarette and pulling away a little bit I looked back to see the house again on my way out and he was still on the porch, stooped and waving goodbye. I had never felt so welcome by a stranger (who was hardly a stranger to me) and until then had only gotten a wave goodbye after I had pulled away from my grandmother’s house. I felt like I had known William Burroughs for years and yet I had no idea who he was.
That was my experience. That’s what happened when I met Burroughs. One of the most important things I left out of that narrative was the moment when I looked over at the barrister bookshelf that he had sitting next to the table where we had our conversation. I just glanced over and behind the glass I saw Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Brian Stableford’s The Critical Threshold, and Doctor’s of Death, an orange spined true crime paperback. I also noticed the copy of Contact by Carl Sagan, a tattered movie edition of Apollo 13, and a copy of Spin with Michael Stipe on the cover. As we were talking I would occasionally glance over to the shelves and get a good look.
I was a reader and a collector. I wanted to know what he was reading. I felt guilty because at one point I missed something he said because I was too interested in the books on the shelves. Something else had taken over. Something I had never really thought of. It was that copy of The Critical Threshold that did it I think.
Years earlier I had read The Adding Machine. In an essay in that book called “Light Reading” Burroughs mentions the books that Audrey Carsons takes with him on a journey through space. One of those books was The Critical Threshold, another was Dan Morgan’s High Destiny and another was John Jakes’ Brak the Barbarian. I ran out to the local paperback bookstore called the book rack or something and looked in the science-fiction section and was lucky to find all three books. I read them quickly and ferociously. I couldn’t get enough. But, it wasn’t until that day in Burroughs house that things changed. I wanted to read them all. I knew that there were many keys in those books, many answers, and probably just as many questions and that’s what interested me. One of the things Burroughs and I discussed was his reading of White Shark by Peter Benchley. He said he had gotten it at Terra Nova. He had some logistical problems with the ending of the novel but overall found it to be a very entertaining book. I told him I had only read Jaws but would rush out and get White Shark. When I left his house I went back to Terra Nova. Since I now knew where he shopped for books I interrogated the employees and they told me, as I would have expected them to do for anyone, that they could not disclose that information. But, they did tell me that he came in quite often and did buy books there. I asked finally what was the last book he bought and a kid there told me hush hush that he had bought White Shark. Well, that didn’t help me too much since I already knew that but I went ahead and made a list of the books I had seen on the shelves and when I got back home I went to the bookstores and found them all. I had them read within weeks.
This had become a mission. I went back and reread The Adding Machine. I found other titles in there. Among them, the John Rossman book, The Mind Masters, The Shootist by Swarthout, and How To Stop Smoking by Bean. I ignored the smoking book, wouldn’t you? I did find the others and wouldn’t you know it I discovered exactly what I had suspected. The Shootist, which was Ronald Reagan’s favorite book, and later became John Wayne’s final film gave me something that I really wanted. I recognized the story. I had never read the book before and had not seen the film yet. How did I recognize the story then? I didn’t know. I went back and reread Burroughs. From beginning to end. My mission was just beginning. I read in chronological order this time because when I first read Burroughs I just read it haphazardly. I read them as I got them. It took me awhile but I found it. There’s a story in Tornado Alley called “Book of Shadows.” You can look up Glendon Swarthout in section one of this book to see
what I found. And, what I will say now is that it’s one of the reasons for this book.
While Burroughs was at Harvard in the 1930’s he attended the John Livingston Lowes class on Coleridge and read Lowes’ book, The Road to Xanadu. To break down this classic piece of criticism and possibly the most entertaining and best analysis of an author’s work, The Road to Xanadu is a criticism of S. T. Coleridge’s work via his reading habits and his drug habits. Lowes attempts to identify the books Coleridge read and seeks to explain how these books might have influenced his writing and his thought. Lowes is very successful in doing this and spots many passages throughout the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner that have been appropriated from Coleridge’s reading, most of which was sea faring literature. This is but one example and certainly not the earliest of Burroughs using his reading to influence or to color his work.
In an early interview Burroughs spoke of his writing habits. He claimed that he would keep a journal and in that journal he would have three columns. One column would be what he was working on at the time, the second column would be things he would see or hear, and the third column would be notes on whatever he was reading at the time. This journal method played a large role in the cut-ups.
One-third of the cut-ups and the journals are admittedly other author’s works. What does a big book like the one you’re holding in your hands do for Burroughs scholarship? I would like to think that it does two things. First it reminds the Burroughs reader and/or scholar that his reading was an essential part of his writing and secondly it provides for us some of that core material. The raw material can be seen and used to identify what he was reading, what he was thinking, and what he was attempting to do.
I do not think of this book as a book of answers. Many books of Burroughs scholarship are out there in the book trade, some readily available, others more difficult to obtain. The Algebra of Need by Mottram, Word Cultures by Lydenberg, William Burroughs by Skerl, and Wising Up the Marks are but a few of the very informative and intelligent pieces of criticism. I believe the two major biographies are still in print, Literary Outlaw by Ted Morgan, and El Hombre Invisible by Barry Miles. The Miles & Goodman bibliography is still available through used book dealers at a reasonable price and the more complete and most recent bibliography by Eric Schoaf is still out there as well. So, with plenty of thorough criticism, two all encompasing biographies, and two major bibliographies, it would seem that this book is unnecessary. It is essential. From Burroughs’ earliest known writing, “Instantaneous Personal Magnetism” written at the Los Alamos Ranch School, we see him writing about his reading. His first published (high school) piece was about a book he had read. He discusses in Literary Outlaw as well as his autobiographical sketch in the Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archive his childhood story, Autobiography of a Wolf. He claims it was his rewrite of the Seton classic, Biography of a Grizzly. In fact, his first prose effort as an adult was centered around another book. “Twilight’s Last Gleamings” written with his childhood friend, Kells Elvins, was based on a book found at Harvard’s Widener Library called The Left Handed Passenger by Felix Riesenberg about the Morro Castle disaster.
So, this is not a book of criticism, biography, or bibliography. It doesn’t really have a place. However, Burroughs’ reading is as an important piece of the literary puzzle as the fact that Burroughs attended the Los Alamos Ranch School, or Harvard, or that he was a heroin addict. I don’t believe that this book answers any questions. I don’t want it to. I would like someone else to do that. This book’s goal is to present more questions, to hand the reader a book of keys and hope that some of them fit. Much of the work of William S. Burroughs is laid out for us. It is not encrypted nor was it meant to be.
Robin Lydenberg said that much of Burroughs work is literal and is meant to be read that way. Sometimes it is just the readers responsibility to see. Maybe this work can help the reader to see a little more clearly, and if it doesn’t and you find yourself reading every book mentioned herein then the worst thing that could happen is you could find yourself getting one hell of an education.
I take for granted that the reader is familiar with the work of William Burroughs. If you are not don’t despair. Go to the bookstore and spend some time, go to the library and waste a few weeks. It will be well worth your time. Reading the Burroughs canon can only alter the consciousness and increase awareness of one’s surroundings. Love it or hate it the work exists in the present time as strongly and as pungently as it did when it was written. Burroughs writings as well as his painting act in many ways as a guide book, books of the dead, maps to other realms. And now, I would like to take the reader on a journey through the books that went into the great tomes that will one day make up the mass of one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.
The first section of this book, Literary Pronouncements and Reading References, is simply a list of authors and books that Burroughs has mentioned in interviews, reviews, fiction, and essays. I have included all of the original documentation within the listing unless that reference indicates more than one author or title. If, for example, Burroughs mentions Baudelaire, Rimbaud and Verlaine in an entry then that entry will be listed in the end notes section and that corresponding number will be assigned to Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Verlaine. End notes do not indicate length of reference only multiple listings to help eliminate repetition to the best of my ability. The letter following the author’s name, or the title of the book when listed indicates the date that Burroughs first became familiar with that particular work. For the chronological key see the Documentation page preceding section one. Title’s have been abbreviated for reputations sake as well. All references found to a particular work will be listed. I have attempted to provide a minimal amount of biographical data, state relationship with author, and influence of work on Burroughs writing when known. This section was certainly the most work and consists almost entirely of previously published statements.
The second section entitled, Introductions, Forewords, Etc... is exactly that. In this section you will find a checklist of all the books Burroughs has written introductions, forewords, and afterwords for. I have not reprinted the texts as that would extend the scope of the book much further than I would like. Instead, I have simply provided brief bibliographical description and have stated relationship with the author if known. The same is the case for section three, Blurbs. In this section you will find all the books which Burroughs is known to have provided dust-jacket blurbs for. I have not reprinted them, only given brief bibliographic description and relationship with the author if known. These two sections are a little tricky as many writers, especially authors of Burroughs stature are asked to provide blurbs, introductions, etc... for a little extra cash, or for a friend, etc. This makes it difficult to say that any of these books were influential on Burroughs thought or his writing, and for that matter, if Burroughs even read the book at all. However, I have included them for the sake of completion. These two sections were also originally published under the title, A Distant Book Lifted in 2001 for Benjiman Spooner Books. There have been many additions to that title and they can all be found here.
The section pertaining to the Ohio State University Archives is a list of all books documented in
the Ohio State archives. John Bennet did a wonderful job of providing online finding aids for the Ohio State holdings of Burroughs material. It is thanks to his work and to Ohio State for allowing the availability of these documents that I was able to cull the personal library from all of the manuscripts, letters, photographs, and everything else they house in those archives. Thanks also to the two volumes of the Avant Garde Wave One and Two catalogues which were very descriptive and useful for this section.
The Catalogue of the William S. Burroughs Archives was released in 1973. This limited edition book edited by Barry Miles and signed by Miles, Gysin, and Burroughs is a difficult book to obtain but not impossible. This text was another essential piece of my research. In this section I have only listed titles from Burroughs personal library that were owned by him. Books that Burroughs used for his writing, books that he used for the cut-ups were included in this collection. Obviously, this literature and this reading material is essential for a complete look at Burroughs reading habits and his appropriation of other literature in his own work. For an example of this time period see the entry on Poul Anderson’s Twilight World in section one. The collection described in the Catalogue of the W.S.B
Archives is now in the hands of a private collector, one Robert Jackson. Jackson has also purchased other smaller Burroughs archives from the late seventies and early eighties as well as some of Brion Gysin’s collections. This portion of the book is very important because it pertains to the sixties and early seventies which was the time period in which Burroughs was most prolifically using the cut-up method, and the books included herein contain some of that raw material.
The final portion of the book is the Lawrence library. In 1999 I contacted Burroughs Communications about coming out to have a look at Burroughs personal library. I spoke to Jim McCrary who was more than happy to oblige and we set up a date. In one day I attempted, without the use of photographs or video camera, to document Burroughs entire library. I was mostly successful. I got titles, authors, some editions, and some annotations. Mr. McCrary, who was very welcoming, then provided for me a sort of short list of the titles in the collection from which I could work. This list had been drawn up by and for the use of the estate. McCrary wasn’t interested in this list being published and asked if I had any intention of publication. I said absolutely not, and I didn’t. It wasn’t until the majority of the work for this book was complete that I realized it was absolutely necessary and essential to the text. James Grauerholz then gave me permission to publish it and was very helpful providing many useful suggestions such as reprinting the location of the books on the shelves (which demonstrates Burroughs mysterious shelving habits - what books went next to what other books) as well as listing some of the items and objects found on the bookshelves. These additions can be found in the appendices.
Edmund White says of Jean Genet’s Prisoner of Love that it is like the Bible, in that it is a book of memory, a book of names. Oliver Harris says in, what is sure to become a classic of scholarship, William Burroughs and the Secret of Fascination, “no matter how long a list you draw up... the list must remain always incomplete...for an object to exercise fascination our relation to it must include some symbolic lack or surplus that remains unaccountable. Once everything can be listed, then what is describes is no longer fascinating.” His lists and maps cannot master the text in which he is studying only muddle the water and stir it up enough for others to see deeper into an area that was once darkened with confusion. Any literary text worth its weight will inevitably be torn apart for study.
This is not a literary text, nor is it like the Bible, but it is a book of memory, a book of names, a book of lists, and as Harris states the list must remain incomplete. Not that I have attempted to intentionally leave out certain information. In fact, the opposite is true. I’ve done much work to be sure I’ve left nothing out. One thing all of the sections of this book have in common is William Burroughs’ reading.
Whether it be picked from interviews, fiction, essays, conversation, or found in archives, estates,
estate sales, the author’s house, or any other place. I have looked high and low for any and all references and this is the sum total of that work. What’s missing is the reader’s interpretation. What’s missing is what keeps the reader fascinated by Burroughs’ work. Neither I nor anyone who has looked at his work has been able to accurately define exactly what it is Burroughs was doing or how he did it. Scholars and fans can attempt it and that’s what keeps the work as fresh as the day it was written, as pure and provocative as the day it was first read by Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac in Tangier. That is because of the depths that it reveals and the territory it covers. This book of names and lists like Genet’s Prisoner of Love is here to simply present the reader with another perspective. No answers to the fascination that Burroughs writing invokes, just a look at what fascinated Burroughs.