Junky
A semi-autobiographical account, narrated in a matter-of-fact manner, of the author’s life as a drug addict. The story ranges from the backstreets of New York to a drug rehabilitation hospital in Kentucky, the bars of New Orleans and on to Mexico, recounting the difficulties of obtaining drugs, financial problems and homosexual encounters. Burroughs significantly stretched the boundaries of publishable material with his debut novel.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
3mentions
3people
2016–2021years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- William S. Burroughs' first work Junky came with a glossary like this. It was published as a trashy train station book rather than capital-A art, so it was necessary to explain words like "croaker" and "cool" to the commuter audience.
- Is there an app on iOS that indexes ubuweb, I noticed Junky read by Burroughs there which would be a fascinating listen, but it comes in lots of pieces and consuming it on the run seems somewhat tricky
- If executed correctly, then jail is a actually good solution for heroin addicts. In jail, they can't leave to buy more junk, so they'll overcome withdrawals with a 100% success rate. The hard part is staying clean.
Heroin use was popular in the Beatnik generation. In the book Junky, William Burroughs describes how had himself jailed voluntarily. Police stations where he was living at the time had a program similar to Gloucester's where users would bring in their "works" in exchange for a 21-day lockup without charges.
