William Burroughs

A controversial reworking of well-trodden American myth by the author of ‘Naked Lunch’.

This surreal fable, set in America’s Old West, features a cast of notorious characters: The Crying Gun, who breaks into tears at the sight of his opponent; The Priest, who goes into gunfights giving his adversaries the last rites; and The Nihilistic Kid himself, Kim Carson, who, with a succession of beautiful sidekicks, sets out to challenge the morality of small-town America.

Fantastical and humorous, ‘The Place of Dead Roads’ continues William Burroughs’ exploration of society’s controlling forces – the State, the Church, women, literature, drugs – with a style that is utterly unique in twentieth-century literature.

Reviews of The Place of Dead Roads

- ‘It’s a comedy and a nightmare of Bosch-like visions, extraordinarily precise vivid visualisations, outrageous ideas like mind bombs.’ Allen Ginsberg
- ‘”The Place of Dead Roads” is Burroughs at his very best, with the same remarkable ear for dialogue and effortless originality.’ Guardian
- ‘The most radical innovator in fiction since Joyce.’ Angela Carter
- ‘Burroughs has a paranoid vision, but as he himself said: the psychotic is someone who knows what’s really going on.’ J. G. Ballard, Sunday Times