The Wild Boys: A Book of the Dead

by William S. Burroughs

Overview

The Wild Boys is a futuristic tale of global warfare in which a guerrilla gang of boys dedicated to freedom battles the organized armies of repressive police states. Making full use of his inimitable humor, wild imagination, and style, Burroughs creates a world that is as terrifying as it is fascinating.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802133311
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	01/12/1994
Series:	Burroughs, William S.
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	193
Product dimensions:	8.18(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

William S. Burroughs (1914-1997) was one of the foremost writers of the Beat Generation. He is best known for his experimental novel Naked Lunch, a subversive and highly controversial book that underwent a court case under the U.S. sodomy laws. In 1983, Burroughs was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and in 1984 he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France. In addition to writing, he also collaborated on numerous projects and recordings.

Date of Birth:

February 4, 1914

Date of Death:

August 2, 1997

Place of Birth:

St. Louis, Missouri

Place of Death:

Lawrence, Kansas

Education:

Los Alamos Ranch School; A.B., Harvard University, 1936; graduate study, 1938

Editorial Reviews

Burroughs' coolly brilliant, futuristic tale of global warfare, in which a guerrilla gang of boys dedicated to freedom battles the organized armies of repressive police states, was first published in 1971. Every college and university library must have all of Burroughs. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

"Burroughs has never written better of the flying psyche, never more vividly of the loathsome circumstances it flees. Wild Boys is brutal hagiography, a book of demons saints purged of hope or desire. They are one collective hero, the culmination of Burroughs's passion for the detached and abstract. Through them he captures the vibrations of total blankness, the sensation of freedom in a psychic nowhere."

Saturday Review

"The Wild Boys is certainly Burroughs's most accessible book since Naked Lunch! It's also his boldest experiment and, perhaps, finest achievement, the work of a brilliant mind that has mellowed but remained very much in tune with the crackle of the universe."

Los Angeles Times

"An ethereally beautiful book"

Rolling Stone