Magick Matters

“Mentored by a Madman: The William Burroughs Experiment” by A. J. Lees

"A fascinating account by one of the world's leading neurologists of the profound influence of William Burroughs on his medical career. Lees relates how Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and troubled drug addict, inspired him to discover a ground-breaking treatment for Parkinson's Disease. Lees journeys to the Amazonian rainforest in search of cures, and through self-experimentation seeks to find the answers his patients crave. He enters a powerful plea for the return of imagination to medical research."...>>

“With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker” by Victor Bockris

"Burroughs, the eccentric, brilliant artist who burned the bridge with logic and wrote the classic Naked Lunch, has a court recorder in Victor Bockris. Bockris has collected into a cogent whole the man's most brilliant moments of conversation, thinking, and interview repartee. This fascinating material, gleaned from the fertile time at Burroughs's New York headquarters, the Bunker (which was located on the Bowery, three blocks from CBGB), encompasses the years 1974 to 1980, and also includes a 1991 Burroughs interview from Interview magazine. The Beats' devotion to subjective experience has left readers with a profound amount of objective material to analyze and debate. Choice public and private utterances, hallucinatory and prescient diatribes such as...>>

“Mosaic of Juxtaposition: William S. Burroughs’ Narrative Revolution” by Michael Sean Bolton

"William S. Burroughs' experimental narratives, from the 1959 publication of Naked Lunch through the late trilogy of the 1980s, have provided readers with intriguing challenges and, for some, disheartening frustrations. Yet, these novels continue to generate new interest and inspire new insights among an increasing and evolving readership. This book addresses the unique characteristics of Burroughs' narrative style in order to discover strategies for engaging and navigating these demanding novels. Bolton advises, "Burroughs' subversive themes and randomizing techniques do not amount to unmitigated attacks on conventions, as many critics suggest, but constitute part of a careful strategy for effecting transformations in his readers". Utilizing various poststructuralist theories, as well as recent theories in electronic...>>

“Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William S. Burroughs” by Ted Morgan

"With a new preface as well as a final chapter on William S. Burroughs’s last years, the acclaimed Literary Outlaw is the only existing full biography of an extraordinary figure. Anarchist, heroin addict, alcoholic, and brilliant writer, Burroughs was the patron saint of the Beats. His avant-garde masterpiece Naked Lunch shook up the literary world with its graphic descriptions of drug abuse and illicit sex—and resulted in a landmark Supreme Court ruling on obscenity. Burroughs continued to revolutionize literature with novels like The Soft Machine and to shock with the events in his life, such as the accidental shooting of his wife, which haunted him until his death. Ted Morgan captures the man, his...>>

“Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs” by William S. Burroughs

"Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs is the most intimate book ever written by William S. Burroughs, author of Naked Lunch and one of the most celebrated literary outlaws of our time. 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 the book. Most significantly, Last Words contains some of the most personal work Burroughs has ever written, a final reckoning with his life and regrets, and his reflections on the deaths of his friends Allen...>>