Queer

Queer is an early short novel (written between 1951 and 1953, published in 1985) by William S. Burroughs. It is partially a sequel to his earlier novel, Junkie, which ends with the stated ambition of finding a drug called Yage. Queer, although not devoted to that quest, does include a trip to South America looking for the substance. The novel begins with the introduction of "Lee," who recounts his life in Mexico City among an American expatriate college students and bar owners surviving on part-time jobs and GI Bill benefits. The novel is written in the third-person and Burroughs commented in the "Introduction" published in 1985, that it represents him off heroin, whereas in Junkie, his narrator was psychologically "protected" by his...