The lost years of William S. Burroughs: Beats in South Texas

Abstract

The sometimes raunchy, often legally dubious New York and Mexican exploits of S. Burroughs, one of the godfathers of the generation, are well known. Less familiar are his experiences in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, where for several years he was a cotton farmer (while avoiding the law in New York). This intriguing chapter in the famous author's life is thoroughly recounted for the first time in Rob Johnson's new book. From 1946 to 1949, Bill Burroughs prepared himself for the writing of his first books by, among other pursuits, raising marijuana and opium poppies and entertaining Beat visitors such as Allen Ginsberg and Neal Cassady at his farm in New Waverly, Texas. Less known, though, are stories about his other farm, a serious fifty-acre spread, in the Valley near Edinburg, described in the 1977 edition of Junky. Here, he raised legal crops such as cotton, carrots, and peas. Other Beat writers move casually in and out of the narrative, which includes the William Tell episode in Mexico in which Burroughs fatally shot his wife, who had placed a drink glass on her head as a target.