Junky – Review

Junky

by William S. Burroughs (Penguin)
by Michelle Lafromboise

“Kick is seeing things from a special angle, kick is a momentary freedom from the claims of the aging cautious nagging frightening flesh.” So, William was a junky. Junky is said to be a legendary account of heroin addiction drawn from William Burroughs own life. Psychotic and neurotic maybe, but a junky? I had my doubts, but after reading this book, I would have to say that William definitely had an insider’s view; William knew heroin.

The first line in the book goes like this: “My first experience with junk was during the war, about 1944 or 1945.” Whoa, I said to myself, 1945, that seems like such a long time ago. You mean to tell me there were such things as heroin addicts back in the forties!! My brain screamed LIES!! It seemed highly inconceivable to me, as illogical as that may sound. It just didn’t seem right, the forties. Mom, apple pie, the war effort, women in factories working on bombs, Old Glory waving in the wind on top of some hill in a far away place… Then we have Will shooting heroin in a dark, dirty little apartment with no windows and a leaky radiator that made the paper curl. Nothing but the stink of the waterfront and the junk to comfort him. Will, kicking the habit, rotting away in a cell trembling, snotty-nosed and watery-eyed, suffering from hot and cold flashes sweating like a dog in the hot sun. Twitching and shaking, too weak to move; Will depressed seeing New York city in ruins taken over by huge scorpions and centipedes crawling in and out of bars. We see Will the junky living his junky life. We feel Will’s pain, we feel his need, we know his hunger; it’s that vivid.

Junky was first published in 1953 by William S. Burroughs under the pen name of William Lee. Before the book was published, he was told to write an introduction describing how he, a middle class American from a well-to-do family became a heroin addicted. “Junk wins by default. I tried it as a matter of curiosity, I drifted along taking shots when I could score, I ended up hooked.”

Junky, reading this book, is being addicted. In 1953, I would have hidden this book under my bed, to be read only after my parents went to bed and I knew my sisters were asleep. Last week, I handed it to my twelve year old sister and demanded that she read it as a summer book project.