The dark side of William Burroughs, wife killer behind Daniel Craig’s Queer

In the precocious months of 1949, aspiring American writer William S Burroughs evaded weapon and cause charges successful the United States by bringing his household to Mexico wherever helium planned to survey portion waiting retired the statute of limitations connected his crimes. Burroughs’ letters picture the aboriginal days aft their accomplishment – settling successful the fashionable Roma territory of Mexico City, kicking his dope wont and immersing himself successful the raucous expat assemblage – with a benignant of euphoria.

Two years later, Burroughs was erstwhile again heavy successful the grip of heroin and prone to violent, pistol-waving outbursts. His matrimony was successful shambles. His wife, Joan Vollmer, was mislaid successful depression, unwellness and alcoholism, driven to deterioration by her ain demons and the rigours of her unhappy, abusive narration with hubby “Bill”.

One stormy evening connected September 6, 1951, the mates joined their accustomed coterie of literate drunks successful an flat supra the rowdy barroom they frequented. At archetypal it was a emblematic get-together – tons of intoxicant and drivel – but the concern changed abruptly erstwhile Burroughs produced a gun, announced “It’s clip for our William Tell act”, and told Vollmer to spot a solid connected her caput arsenic a target. He past changeable her successful the temple.

Burroughs murdered his woman earlier going connected to go 1 of the astir influential figures successful American literature. Vollmer – erstwhile a cardinal property successful the emerging literate and taste question known arsenic the Beat Generation – rests successful a pauper’s sedate connected the borderline of Mexico City to this day.

Now with the merchandise of the movie Queer – an adaptation of Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical caller astir a cheery antheral immersed successful the seedier broadside of Mexico City – determination is renewed involvement successful the author, peculiarly his clip successful Latin America. Although it wasn’t published until 1985, Burroughs began aboriginal drafts of Queer soon earlier shooting Vollmer, and galore of its scenes were drawn straight from their tumultuous matrimony and the toxic circumstances surrounding it.

With the book’s protagonist played by 1 of Hollywood’s starring actors, Daniel Craig, the movie has brought a caller question of solemnisation to Burroughs’ work, accurately posing him arsenic a pioneer successful queer representation. But arsenic groundbreaking arsenic his penning whitethorn person been, a partition lined with mostly unmarked graves successful Mexico City stands arsenic a haunting reminder of a darker broadside to Burroughs’ legacy.

The Burroughs’ flat astatine Jose Alvarado 37 successful Mexico City wherever Bill erstwhile hosted chap Beat writers [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]

The decease of Joan Vollmer

When Burroughs and Vollmer arrived successful the Roma territory of Mexico City successful 1949, the colonia was overmuch arsenic it is today: an upscale neighbourhood fashionable among visitors and expats with a noticeably salient American presence, its quiescent residential streets checkered with houses either whitewashed oregon brightly coloured, tree-lined avenues similar Alvaro Obregon and Amsterdam bustling with restaurants and bars.

Back past the Americans were mostly drawn to the now-defunct Mexico City College, wherever Burroughs enrolled nether the pretext of studying Spanish, Mayan and Mesoamerican codices.

In fact, helium was not studying overmuch astatine all. Instead, helium drank constantly, relapsed into the heroin wont helium had been grappling with for a decade, and chased young intersexual conquests with constricted occurrence done the queer bars on Campeche. Visits from chap Beat Generation luminaires Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac did small to animate his scholarship, arsenic the trio had a propensity for hanging astir the parkland astatine Plaza Luis Cabrera wherever they whiled distant the days getting precocious connected heroin oregon peyote. This resulted successful Burroughs’ withdrawal from school.

The Beats writers hung retired and took drugs astatine the Plaza Luis Cabrera successful Mexico City [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]

Burroughs carried a pistol done it each (“I ever transportation a gun,” helium wrote to Jack Kerouac successful 1949, 2 years earlier sidesplitting Vollmer), and his letters described however helium would often gully it amidst drunken barroom fights lone to person it taken distant by the bartender oregon police. Sometimes it was returned, sometimes it wasn’t.

Vollmer, meanwhile, was not doing well.

She and Burroughs had struck up their narration 4 years earlier successful New York City, wherever Vollmer played a foundational relation successful the aboriginal Beat movement: Her flat was the gathering spot for its astir illustrious participants, who sought to propulsion creator and taste boundaries done the exploration of form, improvisation, drugs, and intersexual liberation. Vollmer was known for her crisp intellect and rhetorical skill, and helped to hone the Beats’ conceptual model via agelong nights of Benzedrine-fueled speech and creation critique. But portion Joan and Bill were drawn to 1 different connected a cerebral level, their national was troubled from the commencement by 2 factors: Burroughs was cheery and they were some raging cause fiends.

As a result, their years unneurotic were painfully fraught. According to person Hal Chase (who introduced Kerouac to Neal Cassady, the prototype for the protagonist successful On the Road), “the conflict betwixt Joan and Bill seemed to beryllium beingness and death.” Jealous of Burroughs’ queer pursuits, Vollmer would mock him sharply portion helium escaped into heroin addiction. However, she was addicted to velocity to the constituent wherever she “got mode disconnected the beam” and landed successful a psychiatric ward. William was nary alien to infirmary stays, including assorted rehab programmes, and once, successful a acceptable of Van Goghian madness, chopped disconnected the extremity of his small digit aft his bosom was breached by an 18-year-old hustler.

By the clip Burroughs and Vollmer arrived successful Mexico – connected the lam from Burroughs’ cause and weapon possession charges successful New Orleans with children successful tow – the mates had kicked drugs successful favour of a relentless drinking habit. By each accounts (and the astir investigative mentation comes via an effort by Burroughs’ longtime person James Grauerholz titled “The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs”), their beingness successful Mexico City was not a blessed one. They wasted overmuch of their clip successful the notorious boozing hub of Bounty Bar (today a laid-back household edifice called Krika’s). The flat supra was wherever Burroughs would soon sprout Vollmer.

Monterrey 122, the flat supra the Bounty Bar wherever William Burroughs changeable and killed Joan Vollmer [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]

Then Burroughs took up heroin again, starring to convulsive disputes wherever Vollmer would propulsion retired the drugs, drafting unit from Bill. He aboriginal inserted a depiction of specified a country successful his novel, Junkie. A fewer months into their clip successful Mexico and astir a twelvemonth earlier her death, Vollmer filed for divorce, though it was ne'er finalised.

By the past days of her life, she seemed to beryllium falling apart.

“She had an incurable humor disease,” wrote Hal Chase successful a missive describing his brushwood with Vollmer a fewer days earlier the shooting. “She had unfastened moving sores, and knew she was dying. She was thin-haired … had mislaid immoderate of her hair. ‘I’m not going to marque it,’ she said.”

On the time of the shooting, Burroughs had conscionable returned from South America wherever helium had been travelling with his lover, Lewis Marker. A drawstring of hurricanes had lashed the region, and overmuch of Roma was flooded with up to a metre (3ft) of water. A radical of expats was gathered astatine the third-floor flat of John Healy astatine Monterrey 122, supra the Bounty Bar wherever Healy worked. One witnesser reported that Vollmer was precise drunk connected ginebre and limonada – gin and citrus soda – but that they did not spot William drinking and helium did not look drunk. Then helium extracted from his question container a Czech-made “Star” .380 pistol.

“Put that solid connected your head, Joanie,” Burroughs suggested, according to writer Eddie Woods, who was contiguous successful the room. “Let maine amusement the boys what a large changeable aged Bill is.”

“So she did,” said Woods, “And she said with a giggle – and she turned her head, she is balancing the solid connected her head, and she said – ‘I can’t ticker this, you cognize I can’t basal the show of blood.’”

Burroughs took purpose astatine the solid and fired. A spread appeared successful Vollmer’s temple and she slumped over, and the solid went spinning crossed the carpet undamaged.

At archetypal Burroughs thought she was joking, but past Marker said Vollmer was hit. Burroughs cried retired and leaped to her side, trying to revive her. According to Marker, the others sat successful silence, “staring and not believing”.

In the ensuing media circus, it was initially reported that Burroughs had fessed up to the William Tell enactment gone incorrect astatine the clip of his arrest. But past astatine the behest of his lawyer, Burroughs changed his communicative and said the weapon had gone disconnected successful a drunken mishap portion helium was showing it to a friend. The lawyer bribed everybody relevant, and Burroughs was released aft 13 days.

Burroughs being questioned by constabulary [reprint from Magazine de Policia (no longer successful publication)]

The couple’s children – lad William Jr (who would dice of alcohol-induced cirrhosis astatine 33, outliving his parent by conscionable 5 years) and Vollmer’s girl from a erstwhile matrimony – were sent to unrecorded with relatives successful the US portion Burroughs stayed successful Mexico to combat his case. But a twelvemonth later, his lawyer changeable and killed the lad of a authorities official, prompting some lawyer and lawsuit to fly the state erstwhile and for all, escaping to the US earlier the erstwhile broke for Europe and the second began searching South America for yage – amended known contiguous arsenic ayahuasca. Burroughs was past convicted of manslaughter successful absentia and received a two-year suspended sentence.

Authorities buried Vollmer successful a cemetery called Panteon Americano connected the borderline of town. In 1990, a posted announcement called for her household to wage the agelong overdue fees associated with her internment, to nary avail. So successful 1993, Vollmer’s remains were exhumed and placed among the unmarked funerary nichos (display boxes) for the indigent. Burroughs ended up shelling retired for a elemental inscription: name, spot and day of birth, spot and day of death.

Vollmer’s is the lone sanction connected a partition of blank graves.

The last resting spot of Joan Vollmer who was killed by her hubby William Burroughs [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]

The appalling conclusion

At the clip of the shooting, Burroughs was a cipher without a caller to his name. His assertion to fame was not arsenic a writer, but arsenic a woman murderer.

Today, helium is remembered arsenic William S Burroughs, writer of Naked Lunch, the avant garde masterpiece deemed 1 of the apical 100 English novels by Time. Since its work successful 1959, the book’s fierce experimentation and willingness to woody with the astir lurid taxable substance has inspired dozens of writers and artists. The famously unfilmable caller was adapted for the surface by acclaimed manager David Cronenberg successful 1991, and present Queer has received the aforesaid treatment.

But contempt his literate brilliance, Burroughs was besides a fragile “megalomaniac” (his word, utilized successful a missive to Ginsberg) who carried a weapon to marque himself consciousness similar a large changeable and jacketed himself with junk to screen up his manic insecurities. His penning played nary tiny portion successful popularising heroin wrong the counterculture, and helium had a disturbing sensation for enactment with underage partners.

William S Burroughs pictured astatine the 10th International Paris Book Fair connected March 23, 1990 [Michel Lipchitz/AP]

While determination has been overmuch statement arsenic to whether 1 tin delineate betwixt his enactment and his deeds – the age-old substance of separating creation from creator – Vollmer’s shooting and the penning were, for Burroughs astatine least, 2 sides of a coin.

“I americium forced to the appalling decision that I would person ne'er go a writer but for Joan’s death,” helium famously wrote successful the instauration to Queer. “The decease of Joan brought maine into interaction with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and manoeuvred maine into a lifelong struggle, successful which I had nary prime but to constitute my mode out.”

It wasn’t ever Burroughs’ volition to fuse the decease to his work. While recognisable elements of Vollmer’s and Burroughs’ beingness unneurotic appeared passim drafts of Junky and Queer, helium neglected to screen the shooting, and explained successful a 1955 missive to Ginsberg: “I fishy my reluctance is not each due to the fact that I deliberation it would beryllium successful atrocious sensation to constitute astir it. I deliberation I americium afraid.” But successful the aforesaid letter, Burroughs attached a section of then-in-progress Naked Lunch that was evidently based connected the incidental – William Tell enactment and each – immortalising the country successful his astir noted novel.

Whether oregon not Burroughs killed Vollmer purposefully has been debated ever since, adjacent by those who champion knew them. There were those, similar Hal Chase, who distanced themselves from Burroughs aft the shooting, past aboriginal suggested intent. Others, similar Ginsberg (who was not contiguous for but was inactive haunted by Vollmer’s decease for the remainder of his beingness and wrote astir it successful the poem “A Dream Record”) claimed that successful information she agreed to the William Tell enactment retired of her ain “death wish” – specified was the grade of her diminishing wellness and intelligence wellbeing.

“Why indeed?” It was a question Burroughs considered himself via his correspondence with Ginsberg, seeming to find nary answers. “I americium acrophobic to spell excessively heavy into this matter.”

Witness Eddie Woods was much definite connected the issue, explaining successful an interrogation years later, “He was retired of it, successful daze that this happened. Again, to me, that’s grounds it was perfectly an accident. He was shocked that helium had deed her, and helium was trying to aftermath her up. This feline was retired of it.”

The sidesplitting was featured successful respective Mexican newspapers and ungraded sheets [reprint from Magazine de Policia (no longer successful publication)]

American tradition

Like galore Americans, Burroughs’ gun fixation was prompted by a combined consciousness of work and paranoia. “I person not lone the close but the work to transportation a weapon and to support my idiosyncratic against immoderate onslaught that mightiness deprive my household of support,” helium wrote to Ginsberg successful January 1951, 10 months earlier shooting his wife.

This irony is persistent, arsenic contiguous the immense bulk of American weapon owners limb themselves for purported idiosyncratic protection, adjacent though weapon ownership vastly increases the hazard of convulsive decease for one’s aforesaid oregon partner. When women successful America are murdered – which has been happening with expanding frequence since 2014 – the slayer is astir ever a home spouse oregon idiosyncratic they know, and the limb is astir ever a gun. In Mexico, thousands of femicides hap each year, impunity rates for unit against women are frighteningly high, and specified crimes are connected the emergence successful North America and astir the world.

Burroughs maintained his weapon wont until his decease successful 1997 astatine the property of 83, with galore legends of his propensity for pulling vigor shared close up to the end. He adjacent worked firearms into his originative process with the “shotgun art” helium blasted successful his aboriginal years.

Joan Vollmer successful an undated photograph taken by Allen Ginsberg [Courtesy of the Ginsberg Estate]

The junk virus

If, similar truthful galore Americans today, William Burroughs possessed a toxic affinity for firearms, helium – again similar excessively galore of his modern compatriots – besides endured a achy conflict with addiction and was alert of its damage. He whitethorn person been 1 of the godfathers of dope, to immoderate grade liable for injecting heroin into fashionable culture, but helium was not its advocate. Quite the opposite.

“Naked Lunch is written to uncover the junk virus,” helium wrote to Ginsberg successful 1959. “Get disconnected that junk wagon, boys.” At the time, helium claimed helium was done with opioids, but helium was not. Never would be.

Opioid addiction has contiguous reached endemic proportions successful the US. In Burroughs’ time and connected done the 1990s, heroin and its junk derivatives were chiefly an underground country with constricted scope and effect. But since OxyContin mainstreamed opioids astir the crook of the millennium, overdose deaths person skyrocketed to much than 80,000 per year.

“Junk is simply a atrocious deal, a obscurity way that ne'er leads to thing but junk,” helium wrote to Ginsberg successful 1959. “If treated arsenic a nationalist wellness problem, [it] could beryllium dilatory eliminated with nary penalizing of [people].” But that would ne'er hap due to the fact that “they don’t privation anyone to kick.”

Burroughs was an outspoken professional of the American propensity for criminalisation and incarceration, with a peculiar vitriol for the targeting of what radical were lone conscionable opening to realise was a disease.

“Those bastards Stateside don’t privation radical to cure themselves,” helium wrote. “They purpose to incarcerate each undesirables, that is anyone who does not relation arsenic an interchangeable portion successful their anti-human Social Economic acceptable up. Repressive bureaucracy is simply a immense conspiracy against Life.”

Inside Krika’s, which was erstwhile the Bounty Bar frequented by Burroughs. Vollmer was changeable successful the third-floor flat supra [Nick Hilden/Al Jazeera]

Art v the artist

Seventy-five years ago, William Burroughs sat astatine the crossroads of what are contiguous among the US’s premier crises: opioids, guns and unit against women. As a consequence, Joan Vollmer was killed, and from her decease – by Burrough’s ain relationship – arose the position helium drew from to make the fever imagination chaos of his top work.

It’s a hard bargain to reconcile. Here is yet different antheral creator celebrated careless of the wreckage of raked-over muses near successful his wake. In the past, specified issues tended to spell overlooked, but that is nary longer the case.

So tin the creation beryllium separated from the artist? And is Burroughs’ work, wide appreciated for its hallucinatory prose and revolutionary form, tainted by its relation with femicide and the emergence of the junk virus?

It is casual to work Naked Lunch and bask losing oneself successful its madness. But erstwhile 1 visits Panteon Americano and sees Joan Vollmer’s lone sanction amid dozens of unmarked stones – silent, nary visitors, her hubby excessively inexpensive oregon excessively acold to propulsion successful a enactment of poesy (“How I miss Joan!” helium wrote successful 1 of his letters, but you spot nary of that feeling successful her tomb inscription) – it becomes hard to clasp the fabrication implicit the reality.

There are nary casual answers. Perhaps – to paraphrase Alan Ginsberg – it’s up to each of america to take which darlings we termination and which we keep.

American writer William Burroughs smoking a cigaret and holding a walking instrumentality astir March 23, 1990 [Archive photo/AP]