Thursday, January 27, 2011

The Two Dittmers

A drunken William S. Burroughs accidentally killed his wife in 1951 in the way shown here--playing William Tell. (Not while standing on his head, though, and with a handgun rather than rifle.) "I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan’s death ... The death of Joan brought me into contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle, in which I had no choice except to write my way out". Or so he surmised in Queer (1985).

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