On the other bed were a pair of long shears, clippings from newspaper society pages, photographs, and a scrapbook. A Zeiss Ikon camera in a scuffed leather case lay on one of the twin beds beside a copy of Field & Stream. On the dresser of his room sat a European transistor radio several science fiction paperbacks Romance, by Joseph Conrad and Ford Madox Ford The Day Lincoln Was Shot, by Jim Bishop and Ghosts in American Houses, by James Reynolds. He speaks elliptically, in short, clear bursts.

His voice is sonorous, its tone reasonable and patient his accent is mid-Atlantic, the kind of regionless inflection Americans acquire after many years abroad. He did not smile during the interview and laughed only once, but he gives the impression of being capable of much dry laughter under other circumstances. His expression is taut, and his features are intense and chiseled. At the age of fifty, he is trim he performs a complex abdominal exercise daily and walks a good deal.

A friend of the interviewer, spotting Burroughs across the lobby, thought he was a British diplomat. He might have been a senior partner in a private bank, charting the course of huge but anonymous fortunes. His manner was not so much pedagogic as didactic or forensic. He wore a gray lightweight Brooks Brothers suit with a vest, a blue-striped shirt from Gibraltar cut in the English style, and a deep-blue tie with small white polka dots. Louis’s most elegant.Īt noon the next day he was ready for the interview. Burroughs, who had watched television alone that night, was asleep in his room at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel, St. Stripteasers ran from the bars in Gaslight Square to dance in the street when midnight came. Interviewed by Conrad Knickerbocker Issue 35, Fall 1965įirecrackers and whistles sounded the advent of the New Year of 1965 in St.

Junky by William S. Burroughs