The Place of Dead Roads, William S. Burroughs
The Place of Dead Roads, William S. Burroughs
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The Place of Dead Roads

Author: William S. Burroughs

Narrator: Ray Porter

Unabridged: 9 hr 49 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/28/2016

Synopsis

From the beat generation and counterculture author William S. Burroughs comes the second novel of the Red Night trilogy, available in audio for the first time.This surreal fable, set in America’s Old West, features a cast of notorious characters: the Crying Gun, who breaks into tears at the sight of his opponent; the Priest, who goes into gunfights giving his adversaries the last rites; and the Nihilistic Kid himself, Kim Carsons, a homosexual gunslinger who, with a succession of beautiful sidekicks, sets out to challenge the morality of small-town America and fight for intergalactic freedom.Fantastical and humorous, The Place of Dead Roads continues Burroughs’ exploration of society’s controlling forces—the state, the church, women, literature, drugs—with a style that is utterly unique in twentieth-century literature.

About William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs (1914–1997) was an American author, painter, and spoken-word performer who has had a wide-ranging influence on American culture. Jack Kerouac called him the “greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.” Norman Mailer declared him “the only American writer who may be conceivably possessed by genius.” A postmodernist and a key figure of the beat generation, he focused his art on a relentless subversion of the moral, political, and economic conventions of modern American society, as reflected in his often darkly humorous and sardonic satire. He wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six short-story collections, and four collections of essays. No fewer than five books of his interviews and correspondence have been published. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians and made many appearances in films. He was elected to the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters in 1983 and in the following year was appointed to the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government.

About Ray Porter

Ray Porter is an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator and fifteen-year veteran of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. He has appeared in numerous films and television shows, including Almost Famous, ER, and Frasier.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Arthur on August 13, 2018

In The Place of Dead Roads, Burroughs takes a detour through the American Old West, beginning with the 1899 death of writer/gunslinger Kim Carsons in a Colorado shootout. From there the story unfolds in a nonlinear telling of Kim’s past experience -- across vast swaths of time and space, under vario......more

Goodreads review by Leo on June 28, 2017

This book is garbage nonsense and Burroughs is a terrible author—glad I double-checked those facts and don't have to again ;)......more

Goodreads review by Rhys on June 26, 2019

A totally awesome novel, the best I have read so far in 2014. Burroughs is one of my favourite writers and I feel he actually improved as he got older. His later books have all the outrageous flights of fancy of his more experimental work but they are expressed in much more tightly controlled prose.......more

Goodreads review by Tosh on April 30, 2008

William Burroughs comes in at least three stages. I would recommend reading his books in order, because in a sense one gets a narrative history of the Avant-Garde writing via his works. This is his last great period in literature. Here he's an old man commenting on the Western of sorts. A place wher......more

Goodreads review by John on January 12, 2019

Kim Carson’s a gay time travelling gunslinger. The prose is superb if a bit baffling at times. Lots of different scenes, weird creatures, guns and more guns as well as addictions in every form. One thing that cannot be disputed is that Burroughs has a vivid imagination.......more

Quotes

“It’s a comedy and a nightmare of Bosch-like visions, extraordinarily precise vivid visualizations, outrageous ideas like mind bombs.”

Allen Ginsberg

“Powerful…A raging torrent of words and images…Burroughs, like Dalí, first draws from his insanity, then selects with reason. And what a master of the mother tongue he is—sculpted sentences, poetic prose, riffs that make you gasp in amazement…More accessible and murkily poetic than ever.”

Los Angeles Times Book Review

“One of the wildest rides into the Wild West, and other parts known and unknown, we will ever have.”

Washington Post Book World

“A moving personal saga as well as a record of revolutionary vision.”

Chicago Tribune

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