![]() ![]() Burroughs walks the tightrope over these emotional chasms throughout the book, and barely puts a foot wrong. It's apparently dispassionate, superficially funny – but essentially horrific. ![]() "Now I'll finish the bastard off," I said, picking up a heavy painted cane … The animal twisted loose and ran into the closet where I could hear it groaning and whimpering with fright. I went on hitting the cat, my hands bloody from scratches. The cat screamed and clawed me, then started spraying piss all over my pants. But this writing still bites and scratches. There's period charm to his hard-boiled prose, clipped sentences and way with plosives ("Junk is not a kick"). ![]() His prose has dated with the style and grace of the best film noir. Its sharp, specific depictions of time, places and species of humanity seem more fascinating the more they recede into the rearview mirror. A century after his birth, 60 years after first publication, it is more than holding its own. Where I would dare to argue with Burroughs is in the notion that Junky is not much of a book. ![]()
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