William Burroughs wrote Queer in 1952, directly after his first novel, Junkie, and less than a year after he had shot dead his wife, Joan Vollmer. The novel continues straight on from Junkie, telling the story of Burroughs’ alter ego, William Lee, an addict and writer living in Mexico City, infatuated with a young American ex-serviceman, Allerton, who proves elusive, possibly not gay at all.
Queer was salvaged from the archive and first published in 1985. In his introduction, Burroughs said his motivations for writing it were no longer clear. “Why should I wish to chronicle so carefully these extremely painful and unpleasant and lacerating memories?”
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