FOREWORD TO JUNKIE (1964)
BY CARL SOLOMON
Junkie by William Seward Burroughs was originally entitled Junk and was written under the pseudonym of William Lee. First presented for publication in the early ’50s, it aroused some interest among hard-cover publishers but was brought out as one of the earliest paperbacks of the newly emerging Ace Books.
Since that time, Burroughs has become famous here and abroad as an avant-garde novelist and short story writer, writing under his own name. His novel The Naked Lunch has been published by Grove Press. In Search of Yage, about his adventures on the Amazon River among the headhunters in search of the “mind-expanding” drug yage, has been brought out by City Lights. The Soft Machine and The Ticket That Exploded have been published in Paris by Olympia Press with much attendant scandal. And a new novel Nova Express, will soon be brought out by Grove.
In Norman Mailer’s Advertisements for Myself, Burroughs is referred to as the American Jean Genet. His second novel, Queer, remains unpublished in this country and abroad.
Behind the “beat” renaissance in mid-Twentieth Century America, which shocked the sensibilities of some and gave new expression to others, William Burroughs remains a seldom seen but by now legendary figure. In 1964, unlike 1950, he has innumerable imitators and would-be imitators. His early creed of junk as a way of life has seeped into the youth of today to the point of becoming a major national problem.
In Junkie he is factual. This is his earlier mode. In his more recent work, he ventures into the surrealistic and imaginative. The New York Post, in writing of his subject matter, fantasies (homo-erotic), and experiments in technique, finds him verging sometimes on the infantile and the schizoid.
In life, he is a peculiar kind of adventurer, seeking out what is unusual or unexplored in our sensibilities or in our way of living. Pursuing what is increasingly hard to find, the unknown, Burroughs has not yet become redundant and his curiosity is not yet exhausted. In this respect he is unlike many other so-called avant-gardists and poets who once experimented but then reclined on their couches and ruefully admitted that there was nothing new under the sun.
As for his junk habit, he has gone off and gone back and taken a variety of cures with different amounts of success. One cure, in England, under a Dr. Dent, resulted in an article written by Burroughs in a scientific quarterly.
Burroughs is a Harvard graduate, has pursued a variety of occupations, is the father of two children, and is the scion of a wealthy family.
One of the more lurid incidents in his past was the accidental shooting of his wife in a “William Tell” experiment . . . demonstrating his marksmanship by attempting to shoot a champagne glass off her head and killing her in the process. For this, in Mexico City, in about 1950, he was acquitted.
In one form or another, under one guise or another, his character and personality seem to have had reflections in fictional characters in the writings of his protégé, Jack Kerouac. This is particularly evident in the character of Dennison in Kerouac’s first novel, The Town and the City, and also in that of Bull Balloon in Dr. Sax.
His politics are a bit hazy. We can seldom make out whether he is fighting against real conspiracies or imaginary ones. In In Search of Yage, he appears at times to be a liberal or even a radical, and the reputation he acquired in recent years in Paris seems to situate him more or less on the left. Most of the time, Burroughs appears to be too self-preoccupied to show much sustained interest in any political camp.