Call Me Burroughs

A Life

By: Barry Miles

Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner

Length: 29 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

Fifty years ago, Norman Mailer asserted, "William Burroughs is the only American novelist living today who may conceivably be possessed by genius." Few since have taken such literary risks, developed such individual political or spiritual ideas, or spanned such a wide range of media. Burroughs wrote novels, memoirs, technical manuals, and poetry. He painted, made collages, took thousands of photographs, produced hundreds of hours of experimental recordings, acted in movies, and recorded more CDs than most rock bands. Burroughs was the original cult figure of the Beat Movement, and with the publication of his novel Naked Lunch, which was originally banned for obscenity, he became a guru to the 60s youth counterculture. In Call Me Burroughs, biographer and Beat historian Barry Miles presents the first full-length biography of Burroughs to be published in a quarter century - and the first one to chronicle the last decade of Burroughs's life and examine his long-term cultural legacy.

Written with the full support of the Burroughs estate and drawing from countless interviews with figures like Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, and Burroughs himself, Call Me Burroughs is a rigorously researched biography that finally gets to the heart of its notoriously mercurial subject.

©2014 Hachette Audio; 2014 Barry Miles

A Complicated Person. A Brilliant Biography.

Burroughs was a complicated person. And this is a brilliant biography. I did walk away from it with some of my assumptions in place—that he exploited desperate boys and young men—because of his status. That the root of his famous paranoia was the fact that he was very much the exploitative person he professed to criticize. That he neglected his son and genuinely appeared, at times, to lack empathy. Yet the work also showed that he struggled like anyone else. He had deep friendships and people loved him. The book also explained the biggest mystery to me: why someone who lived in so many amazing places would spend the last 15 years of his life in Kansas.

Needless to say, Miles is truly masterful. He presented the information about Burroughs in an oddly contradictory way—both intimate and objective at the same time. And his understanding of how Burroughs life was unfolding at the time of his works was a true gift. Elucidating without dwelling on them in some pedantic way. His explanation of Burroughs connection to painting and how it evolved in his last years was equally insightful.

Yet more than anything, this book made me want to write and create. I felt Inspired, which I wasn’t expecting. And perhaps more than that, it helped me see Burroughs as an artist. It dispelled some of the myths that made him an icon. Things I’ve been carrying around since first encountering him. It also made me believe, once again, that cut ups might possibly be interfering with the space time continuum. And for that I am truly grateful.

A Wonderful, Intimate Portrait

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes. It is a fascinating look into the life and love(s) of one of America's most important and contrary writers.

What other book might you compare Call Me Burroughs to and why?

Fire in the Belly. Because both were clear and human looks at extraordinary and uncompromising men. Neither biography flinched away from looking at the less savory aspects of each man's life (murder, drugs, hustling), but they were not salacious glimpses, just informational, and mostly, compassionate.

Have you listened to any of Malcolm Hillgartner’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No. But I liked it very much, and I am super fussy about narrators.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The notion that after a sexual encounter, the usually gruff WB was gentle, tender, and "giddy." I loved that extraordinarily human detail.

Any additional comments?

If you are interested in the Beats, read this book about the most interesting one.

A TWISTED JOURNEY

An exhaustive, fascinating biography of a very unconventioal, and often troubling, life.

Well worth reading by those interested in outsiders, the avant-garde, and the darker sides of life.

Remarkably Comprehensive

Burroughs was such an important influence on 20th century counter-culture largely due to the events of his busy social life, which makes him a superlative and lively biography subject.

I found the level of detail in this biography truly impressive.

Horrible Person, MIC Agent, Decent Artist

Burroughs was a filthy, corrupt human being, impossible to like (although social justice warriors would not doubt say Burroughs was "just misunderstood). This was a bad, bad guy, maybe a real "Exterminator" (he certainly suggested so throughout the years). Rich kid traveling the world, decides to be a writer...come on. This guy was "in." But in spite of his heinous actions, there can be found some jarring, snappy American sci-fi poetry in his body of work; he was a far better writer than his creepy friend Ginsberg, and a much more interesting writer than their mutual pal Jack Kerouac. Burroughs can't be pigeonholed by the Beat movement. He was an alien even among his chums. By old age he seemed to truly love his cat friends. What really went on in this man's head? Was he a privileged sociopath, or a cunning agent about whom we really know nothing? How sincere was his belief in justice? He shot his wife and abused boys. But he was no mere writer. At the end of the Naked Lunch movie by Cronenberg, there seems to be a slight suggestion that Burroughs' homosexuality was just a cover. He won't ever be anyone's hero, but his talent was good enough that a look into his life--however upsetting--is not a waste of a listener's time.

A Masterpiece Crime Novel

Any additional comments?

This was a labor of love on the writer's part. Not sure it is just to give less than a five star review for the work that went into this book. My review, could easily be a book, about this book.

The first two parts of the book was a fascinating history of the personal lives of the upper class, which Burroughs was a product of. His sense of entitlement through out his life. Was not aware he was subsidized by his family until the age of fifty against the backdrop of a Harvard education. For me the book is a perfect account of the downside of the "idle rich".

Much of his published work was reworked heavily by others with laborious editing before it was published. He even managed to get others, more or less, to write his books. And he welcomed any one who was willing to "contribute to him".

His aloof use and corruption of young beggar boys sexually, as toys, had a Caligula strip of force as a character reference. By the third part of the book, one was forced to confront the evil and I had to open a bottle of Jim Beam to be led into that dark place. It was not a pleasure ride but I plugged on. The depth of depravity and corruption, lack of remorse and empathy in his letters as he spoke of his crimes against children and the needy, the sadism, was not easy to confront.

The way he worked his way through the upper class as a debutante with opinions to sell, using the P.R. machine Alan Ginsberg, while he perfectly managed to get away with murder, and corruption and sexual molestation of minors, and actually made enough profit to buy a factory kit Sears and Roebuck home to retire in, in Kansas, for his true confessions books, is an illustration of the perfect con man. Who did it all, with applause from his fellow man.

Very spooky, very real.

The book is a masterpiece crime novel.

ETERNAL ADOLESCENT

Barry Miles describes the life of an eternal adolescent in Call Me Burroughs. William Seward Burroughs never seems to grow up in Miles’ well researched and fascinating biography of a twentieth century iconoclast. Burroughs lives a life of debauchery. With spoon fed income from family wealth, Burroughs lives on the fringes of society; observing and recording his experience.

Listening to Barry Miles’ smartly researched and narrated biography, a listener senses that Burroughs is, in one sense, a parasite of society. Burroughs is an eternal adolescent that lives off his parents until they die. He adjusts his life style to continue getting the hedonistic most out of life without working. He observes without being; he reports without doing. Burroughs does nothing in life that benefits anyone but himself. In another sense, Burroughs is an icon of change in society; i.e. a representative of the sex’, drugs’, and arts’ revolutions of the twentieth century.

A Thorough Look At Burroughs' Life And Work

This book has everything you want to know about William S. Burroughs. Everything from his earliest memories to his final words is lovingly encapsulated within the confines of this book. Episodes from the subject's life are reflected by passages of his work by the biographer's appropriately placed excerpts. If you wanted to know how the novels reflect the life and times of Burroughs, this book is your ultimate resource. Likewise, it is a skeleton key for matching Burroughs' work with his occult beliefs. Call Me Burroughs spends a healthy amount of time discussing William S. Burroughs's relationship with the Church of Scientology, and beliefs regarding the supernatural power of his own writings. Barry Miles' previous biography of Burroughs, El Hombre Invisible, was not great. Ted Morgan's biography of Burroughs, Literary Outlaw, is much better, and still worth reading, but Call Me Burroughs is as much an exegesis of Burroughs' work as an artist as it is a catalog of his life's events, so I rate it far above Literary Outlaw. Ted Morgan, however, captures Burroughs' flaws in a way that Barry Miles fails to. Perhaps this is due to Barry Miles' personal acquaintanceship with the subject of this book. Anyway, I no longer hold El Hombre Invisible against Barry Miles, and I will be checking out his Zappa biography now that I'm aware of his grown capacity for biography. Malcolm Hillgartner's performance should be a selling point for audiobook buyers looking for a narrator who will capture the signature sound of the voice of Burroughs. He imitates the subject in a way that doesn't distract from the book itself. Hillgartner borrows speaking habits of Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, and others, when he he is reading words attributed to them. Rest assured that it isn't a hammy or overdone performance, and merely helps the listener to identify quoted words from the author's exposition. I give Michael Hillgartner's performance five stars because it gives this book a humanizing touch that doesn't detract from the academic worth of the text.

WOW, I'm so glad to know about you

At my age of 55, Burroughs work would never have even been an idea for introducing my generation to this mans works, his beliefs, his wonderful ability to be who he wanted to be, despite the struggles that one will face when resisting the control of societal norms, expectations, and the robotic control embedded in us, many never knowing it happened. And what awesome friends!

Self involved, misogynistic, drug addict

I probably need to read one of his books to see why he is so admired. His life was a mess. An addict until the end of life. Gun nut. Conspiracy fanatic. Using and destroying the people around him including his own wife and child.

The Beat Generation were not much given to reflection, moderation or care. Drugs, alcohol and sex seem to have been the over arching passions in their lives. It was brutal to listen to. Unless you like hearing about the convenience of an un-healing sore on your arm that makes shooting up easier.

I like Malcolm HIllgartner, but while I imagine he researched the voice of William Burroughs, the voice he used was grating.