great book, great man
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thanks for the memories, great insight into his weird techniques, but maybe this biography robbed some of burroughs mystique from his work, exposing too much, showing us that distempered vein which may have been best left unexposed. generally great but i think burroughs is an artist whose methods are perhaps best left concealed and revealed in the works themselves. interesting inter-personal relations with the 'beats' kerouac, ginsberg et al...
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The true Burroughs
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I have read a number of WSB's books but I found this book a real entry into the man's mind and purpose. One does not have to agree with all Burroughs' deductions about the Meaning (or lack) of Life but this book lays out why and how he wrote about it. He remains one of the most fascinating and original minds of the 20th century and this book explains why.
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Definitive exploration of writing life
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This was the first biography of Burroughs I read; I also have the Ted Morgan biography, but I don't think a direct qualitative comparison is possible. While Morgan goes into enormous biographical detail, Miles puts Burroughs' work in central position, and his analyses are really perceptive and thorough, with demonstrative use of passages from the text as well as references to relevant events in Burroughs' life. It is, as other reviewers have said, really the best existing introduction to Burroughs' work - I don't know if I could have made it through the cut-up trilogy without the preparation of reading this book first. I should also point out that some biographical details are here which are not in Morgan, e.g. the use of real names where Morgan substituted pseudonyms.
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