Queer Burroughs - Softcover

Russell, Jamie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312239238 ISBN 13: 9780312239237

Publisher: St Martin's Press, 2001

Synopsis

William S. Burroughs is consistently thought of as a novelist who is gay, rather than a gay novelist. This distinction is slight, yet remarkable, since it has meant that Burroughs has been excluded from the gay canon and from the scope of queer theory. In this intelligent book, Jamie Russell offers the first queer reading of Burrough's novels. He explores how the novels of Burroughs can be seen as a sustained attempt to offer a very personal rethinking of gay subjectivity, and as an attempt to overturn stereotypes of gay men as effeminate. Yet in his celebration and appropriation of some of the most violent, misogynistic, and effeminaphobic elements of heterosexually-identified masculinity, Burroughs's life and writing suggests a subjectivity which has been deeply troubling to many in the gay community.

About this title

Review:

'...Convincing and compelling...accessible and understandable to any educated general reader. The prose is engaging, supple, fluid, readable, and clear. I think the moment for this book is here right now; it illuminates the paradox of perhaps the most out and queer writer in American culture being somehow excluded from most queer canons. Russell's theory explains more of Burroughs than anything else I have read. A well-written, thoroughgoing, excellent piece of scholarship which breaks new ground by relating Burroughs to queer theory...' - Bill Savage, Northwestern University
'...informative and discriminating book...' - Choice

About the Author:

JAMIE RUSSELL is a lecturer in English and a freelance journalist. He lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martin's Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0312239238
• ISBN 13: 9780312239237
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272