[Item #5411] Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers. Oliver Harris, William S. Burroughs.
Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers
Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers

Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers

Germany: Moloko Print, 2022. First Edition. Softcover in Stiff Wrappers. “’Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers’ serves up rewritten versions of two illustrated talks originally given at Columbia University in New York and previously published by Reality Studio, a website that has championed the crossover between academic and popular engagement with Burroughs’ work. Each essay re-examines the standard reception of Burroughs’ writing from the 1950s, revealing the secret centres of truth within the generally misleading myths we have all heard about his writing of Junky, Queer, The Yage Letters, and Naked Lunch. These rich, tasty morsels of manuscript research should whet the appetite for anyone wanting to understand why the material backstories to Burroughs’ work are even more fascinating than the mythology” (Front Cover flap). As Your Devoted Managing Curator writes this blurb, he sits six books into a project of reading every single word penned & published by Dr. Harris on the subject of William S. Burroughs (1914-1997). Those familiar with Dr. Harris’ work will recognize the surprisingly non-fanatic nature of this task. Treating Dr. Harris’ work with this quotient of respect and gravity is less a product of fandom and more an equational reality—a “problem” or theorem that simply must be solved if we are to complete our assignment. For those that seek to go beyond “Burroughs, the Myth,” Oliver’s research is indispensable. Relying on what he terms the “material histories” of a text, Dr. Harris dispenses with the myopic preferentialism of the New Critics, rooting any and all flights of conjecture or presumption in traceable histories and unearthed fact. “Making Naked Lunch: Two Appetisers” is no different; and its readers will be the wiser for it. [ISBN: 978-3-948750-20-6]. Softcover in stiff wrappers: First Edition, though not explicated as such at copyright page or colophon. Book in very fine condition, fundamentally as new with only slightest shelf-wear to fine-edges & corners of front, back covers, else pristine. Very Fine. [Item #5411]

Price: $30.00