Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs [Hardcover]

Graham Caveney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1998

William S. Burroughs, founding father of America's counterculture, was born in 1914 into a wealthy St. Louis family. He originally planned to be a doctor but soon found another calling: literary outlaw and professional iconoclast. During his youth, he led a life almost as strange as his writing, drifting from job to job--as bartender, private detective, and insect exterminator--before writing his first book, Junkie, a harrowing account of his fifteen-year heroin addiction. But it was Naked Lunch, a surreal Dante's Inferno of narcotics, urban nightmares, and explicit sex, that became his masterpiece and made him an icon of the avant-garde, and sealed his role as hero to generations of artists, poets, punks, and rock musicians. By the time of his death in the summer of 1997, he was not only the last surviving Beat but the acknowledged granddaddy of America's counterculture, with everyone from Apple Computer's Steve Jobs to Philip Glass to U2 claiming him as an inspiration.Now, with Gentleman Junkie, Graham Caveney gives us the definitive life of William S. Burroughs--less a biography than a "chronology of the Burroughs phenomenon," an examination of the myth behind the man. Filled with 150 color photos--many of them never seen before--and new biographical material, Gentleman Junkie shows how Burroughs's fascinating life, from Harvard to Greenwich Village to Tangiers, was matched only by his enormous impact on modern literature and pop culture. Dapper radical, literary experimentalist, and mentor to countless artists, Burroughs had an indelible influence on American culture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

There have been several solid conventional biographies of William S. Burroughs (1914-1997), and this imaginative consideration of his "life and legacy" does not seek to replace them. Instead, British scholar Graham Caveney concentrates on Burroughs as a cultural phenomenon whose unsettling ability to depict personal degradation with modernist detachment first awed contemporaries in the beat generation and continued through the 1990s to inspire artists as diverse as grunge rocker Kurt Cobain, painter Keith Haring, and film director David Cronenberg. Even before Naked Lunch became a literary and legal cause célèbre--the book was ultimately judged not obscene in a landmark 1966 court decision--Burroughs was a legend in avant-garde circles for his epic drug use, unabashed homosexuality, and adventurous prose. In later years he became an elder statesman of the counterculture, an icon of excesses survived, revered for his unflinching portraits of the existential abyss. Caveney astutely examines the appeal for Americans of this complex figure whose highly experimental work had more in common with that of such Europeans as Jean Genet than with pals like Allen Ginsberg. The book's design reflects its genre-bending aspirations: Caveney's text jostles against reproductions of photos, newspaper clippings, and other documents, all of it laid out on pages colored red, orange, yellow, and blue. Words, images, and colors form an inventive whole that pays fitting tribute to a man who lived entirely by his own rules. --Wendy Smith

From Library Journal

This brief biography portrays Burroughs as a walking contradiction?the Harvard-educated junkie in a three-piece suit, the writer who sought to erase the word. Making good use of photographs, collage art, and newspaper clippings, Caveney (American literature, Univ. of East Anglia) emphasizes Burroughs's contributions to popular culture, particularly in music and film. In its design, the book somewhat resembles Angelhead Hipster (Viking, 1996), Steve Turner's recent biography of Jack Kerouac. Caveney often provides exact addresses for Burroughs's haunts, a helpful feature for groupies intent on visiting the shrines of their "priest." Of the three major biographies of Burroughs, Caveney's is probably the best for the casual reader. Those seeking a more detailed portrait will continue to rely on Barry Miles's William Burroughs (LJ 8/93) and Ted Morgan's Literary Outlaw (LJ 10/15/88).?William Gargan, Brooklyn Coll. Lib., CUNY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown & Co (T); 1st edition (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316137251
• ISBN-13: 978-0316137256
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 7.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #490,895 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Stryfe and Crimes" of William S. Burroughs, December 13, 1999

By 

"jdubach" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs (Hardcover)

This book is excellent. This book not only provides an insight into the world of W.S. Burroughs, but also brief insight into the lives of such figures as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. There are picturs throughout, and numerous quotes from Burroughs to spark the imagination, and promote new mental growth. This biography spans the time from his birth to his death, and to my knowledge is the most accurate and complete biography published so far about this dynamic literary figure. If you wish to learn more about this author, or about the beat world in general, this book will provide a world of answers.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Visual Treat -- Isn't that Enough?, February 6, 2001

By 

www.zverina.com (Carver Country) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs (Hardcover)

An excellent introduction to the life and work of American artist William Burroughs, it's especially notable for the beautiful design which incorporates snapshots, artifacts such as hat-cleaning receipts and Army reports, and washes of Burroughs' shotgun paintings which background each textured-paper page. This substantial hardback is reminiscent of Burroughs' own scrapbooks and penchant for the pastiche, its look and feel mimicking the experiments in randomness-- cut-ups and ballistics-- which (in)formed so much of his work. It is foremost a visual, tactile, and olfactory (new it smells like crayons) treat. The New York Times called this "an empty book," which is reason enough to love it. It's a pop biography, a primer on the grand-daddy of the beats. It's not deep, but as eye candy it's neat.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A colorfull look into the fascinating life of Burroughs, December 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs (Hardcover)

On Aug. 3 , 1997, author William S. Burroughs died of a heart attack. He left behind two legacies ; his writing and the events of his life. Graham Caveney takes on the task of unfolding both and weaving them into a book that flows easily and is full of color and image .It feel almost like an art book .Images and text swirl together almost moving off the page. For most Americans Burroughs is known but hardly read. Noterised by his drug intake ,not his literary output. Caveney is careful to document the different avenues of change this man persued. Coming at a time when alot of his spoken works are being re-examined and released ,this document is sure to shed more than a little light on a man who truely was a great word smith ( or destroyer there of).