William Burroughs: El Hombre Invisible: A Portrait

This seems to be a good introduction to the life and times of Bill Burroughs. I've read little of Burroughs' works, so I am not one to judge his overall literary merits. I have only read two-thirds of "Cities of the Red Night," which I found to be confusing to the point of being unreadable. I realize, however, that this only touches a tiny bit of Burroughs' output. With difficult authors like Burroughs, I sometimes become more interested in the life of the author, and less interested in his/her works. If this is you, then this book is for you. Here, Miles (Allen Ginsberg) covers Bill Burroughs from birth to death. There's plenty of interesting detail on Burroughs as the sensitive, withdrawn, homosexual youth, more on his years overseas with Ginsberg, Gysin, Kerouac, Bowles, and others, plus a nice wrap up with Burroughs in Kansas. Miles pulls no punches, at once painting Burroughs as a genius, and again as a serious drug addict who would spend hours doing nothing but staring at the tips of his shoes. Miles does a good job of explaining the genesis of many of Burroughs' works, and the odd ways in which they were assembled. Recommended.

This was the first biography of Burroughs I read; I also have the Ted Morgan biography, but I don't think a direct qualitative comparison is possible. While Morgan goes into enormous biographical detail, Miles puts Burroughs' work in central position, and his analyses are really perceptive and thorough, with demonstrative use of passages from the text as well as references to relevant events in Burroughs' life. It is, as other reviewers have said, really the best existing introduction to Burroughs' work - I don't know if I could have made it through the cut-up trilogy without the preparation of reading this book first.I should also point out that some biographical details are here which are not in Morgan, e.g. the use of real names where Morgan substituted pseudonyms.