Call Me Burroughs, Barry Miles
May. 27th, 2014 09:22 amA few weeks back, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
supergee discussed Call Me Burroughs, a new biography by Barry Miles of influential Beat Generation writer William Burroughs, using it to raise the fascinating question of whether an artist's work can allow us to overlook his or her life. It sounded like exactly the sort of juicy, gossipy biography that I love, so I got the book from the library as soon as I could. This may or may not have been a good thing. The biography is detailed, gripping, enthralling in more than one section. It also left me feeling faintly to seriously unclean as I read. This was a book I had to put down frequently.
( Cutting because although I think all of this is important, it also got much longer than I anticipated. Rant ahead. Also, brief mentions of child abuse and animal torture. You've been warned. )
supergee discussed Call Me Burroughs, a new biography by Barry Miles of influential Beat Generation writer William Burroughs, using it to raise the fascinating question of whether an artist's work can allow us to overlook his or her life. It sounded like exactly the sort of juicy, gossipy biography that I love, so I got the book from the library as soon as I could. This may or may not have been a good thing. The biography is detailed, gripping, enthralling in more than one section. It also left me feeling faintly to seriously unclean as I read. This was a book I had to put down frequently.( Cutting because although I think all of this is important, it also got much longer than I anticipated. Rant ahead. Also, brief mentions of child abuse and animal torture. You've been warned. )