Speed and Kentucky Ham

Yes, Billy Junior was not his father: read this thinking of him as his own person with his own habit. That said, I was surprised how much impression this duo-novel had on me. For one thing, it's authentic. This guy knew his drugs and how to talk candidly about them. I found myself laughing with him, rooting for him when he started to get in trouble.Another value this book has, especially the Kentucky Ham segment, is a crash course (no pun intended) on what can make a drug rehabilitation program actually have the effect that such things so seldom do: Bill Jr. suggests that addicts need the chance to "put in a new brain" and do it for themselves, without all the BS and indoctriation that come with most drug treatment facilities. The program Billy was involved with helped small groups of addicts to travel to Alaska and join fishing crews. While playing Eskimo for months he learned to re-acquaint himself with the rhythms of his body, the demands of surviving, and learn what the unpretentious life close to nature can often offer people who have forgotten the basics. (I wonder if programs like this still exist sometimes, ones without any of that "faith based" nonsense.) All told, a great book that any lover of drugs should have a gander at. It is, to my great delight, completely unjudgmental about drugs and their users: he simply decided enough was enough when it was time to.

I love and have loved these two books by Billy Jr for years. I have read them 3-4 times and swear they only get better w/each re-read. When you finish the last page of Kentucky Ham (having read Speed first and the second book subsequently) you feel like you and Billy had just hung out together for a little while. And it feels like that evey time you read his stuff. How sad that he was indeed "cursed from birth" and had such a short sad life but how intruiging it was!

If you like William S. Sr. stories of the streets of NYC you will really dig, Burroughs Jr's tales of living life as a speed junky. The story is real and reads well. Kentucky Ham is a triumph. Perhaps one of the best under rated books I have ever read.

truly an amazing work of art, the son of william s burroughs tells the tale of his life as a speed-addict. i've read it some times now, and it is still as releasing to read it now as it was the first time. i'm also a fan of his father's work, but i must say that his son really makes burroughs senior's books rather boring and non-animate.especially one sentence touched me: "the tree showed the shape of the winds"oh how right he was

These two novels are powerful, humorous, masterful...I can't say enough good things about them. The characteristic matter-of-fact Burroughs bite is there, but Billy Jr. handles the emotions and hopelessness of his lifestyle with more empathy than his father...a must-read for anyone who is a fan of Burroughs or his brand of drug culture. Even though the novels were written decades ago, it is easy to identify and fall in love with the late Burroughs Jr.