Last Words - (Burroughs, William S.) by William S Burroughs (Paperback)

About the Book

Laid out as diary entries of the last nine months of Burroughs's life, "Last Words" spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns--literature, U.S. drug policy, the state of humanity, his love for his cats--permeate this poignant portrait of the man, his life, and the creative process.

Book Synopsis

From the author of Naked Lunch andone of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time comes the most intimate work he ever wrote, a complex portrait of Burroughs at the end of his life, coming to terms with aging and death.

Culled from journal entries of the last nine months of his life, Last Words spans the realms of cultural criticism, personal memoir, and fiction. Classic Burroughs concerns-rants on U.S. drug policy, contempt of the state of the human race, his love for his cats--permeate the book. He breaks into classic "routines' and provides frequent commentary on whatever he is reading--from high literature to low-brow thrillers.

The "Old Man" emerges as frequently comical, sometimes meditative, always engaged--a commentator on the state of the world and the self. Most significantly, Last Words reveals the most open and vulnerable Burroughs we have ever seen. His reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen Ginsberg and Timothy Leary provide a window on the preparations Burroughs was making for his own death--a quest for absolution marked by a profound sense of guilt and loss.

Last Words is unlike anything else in the oeuvre of William S. Burroughs. It is the purest, most personal work ever presented by this writer, and a poignant portrait of the man, his life, and his creative process--one that never quit, even in the shadow of death.

Review Quotes

"Last Words . . . presents fresh cues to the larger design of [Burroughs's] imagination, and a means of gaining a renewed perspective on his work." -The New York Times Book Review

"Austerely moving . . . Burroughs frequently becomes a homilist in Last Words, a priestly scribe offering spare but fierce opinions . . . what a singular voice he had." -Bookforum

"These heroic and generous transcriptions . . . show a Burroughs who has curiously changed, and yet become more himself than ever. . . . With its distinctly fraying texture, its knots of bee-in-bonnet anger, its forgettings and repetitions and cherished quotations, Burroughs's journal is an addition not just to the literature of swansongs (like Harold Brodkey's This Wild Darkness) but of ageing itself (like Beckett's late poem "What is the Word")." -The Times Literary Supplement

"Burroughs considers his old age with a mix of wry humor, scattershot rancor, and intimate rue. . . . Precious to all Burroughs devotees." -Publishers Weekly

"Burroughs' claim to literary greatness is inextricably tied to the shocking inhumanity of his fiction, its quality of notes found in outer space. . . . If Last Words reveals Burroughs dreaming of the "war," it also reveals a gentler, more intimate side." -Salon

"This book helps transform a Beat icon into a human being. . . . In these pages he faces the death of friends, of beloved animal companions, and, finally, his own end. And he confronts it all with grace, although certainly not without heartache." -The Kansas City Star

"A curious bit of sweetness, coming from one of literature's greatest misanthropes . . . both courageous and heart-breaking." -The Stranger

"They called him the priest, but William S. Burroughs was so much more: guru, visionary, abhorred by the right-wing controlling elements of society against which he railed, and a literary seed-planter for the American countercultural movement. . . . Last Words [shows] a deep appreciation for life and a profound sorrow almost beyond words. . . . Reason enough for anyone . . . to pay heed to the legacy that is Burroughs." -In Pittsburgh

"As close to a Burroughs autobiography as we're likely to see. He reconstructs his life in the form of a long and tangled dream." -New York Press

"Damned if the old genteman didn't make it sound beautifully macabre, right up until the end." -San Francisco Reporter

"It might be hard to imagine what the tender, vulnerable side of William S. Burroughs . . . would look like without the last work he left behind: his journals . . . an entertainingly arch and ultimately poignant peek into the private life of one of the more mercurial American writers of the last century." -Washington Blade

"Burroughs' unrelenting cry of defiance against the established order comes through loudly and clearly. . . . Burroughs' fans might very well take this account of the author's ultimate journey on earth as a holy text of sort, Burroughs' Book of the Dead." -Express (Berkeley)

"If anyone doubted Burroughs' humanity, there is ample proof of it in Last Words." -The Washington Post Book World

"Last Words is filled with memories and reminiscences delivered in staccato poignancy. . . . In the journals, a full and vibrant life is described and evoked." -The Scotsman (Edinburgh)

About the Author

Born into a prominent St. Louis family, in 1914, William S. Burroughs would go on to be one of the most innovative and controversial writers of the twentieth century. He was a founding father of the Beat Generation, whose companions included Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Jack Kerouac.