PENGUIN MODERN CLASSICS : QUEER – WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS-OLIVER HARRIS

Originally written in 1952 but not published till 1985, Queer is an enigma – both an unflinching autobiographical self-portrait and a coruscatingly political novel, Burroughs only realist love story and a montage of comic-grotesque fantasies that paved the way for his masterpiece, Naked Lunch. Set in Mexico City during the early fifties, Queer follows William Lee s hopeless pursuit of desire from bar to bar in the American expatriate scene. As Lee breaks down, the trademark Burroughsian voice emerges; a maniacal mix of self-lacerating humor and the Ugly American at his ugliest. A haunting tale of possession and exorcism, Queer is also a novel with a history of secrets, as this new edition reveals.