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The Place of Dead Roads

The Place of Dead Roads

William Burroughs

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

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