Guilty of Everything

by Herbert E. Huncke

Guilty of inducing boredom as well, this sordid, ill-written memoir by a retired thief and ex-addict adds little to one's knowledge of Burroughs, Ginsberg, Kerouac and the post-World War II drug scene. Typical of Huncke's remarks are that his father was a "miserable bastard," his mother "had a pair of legs on her that were really something, and she knew how to conduct herself," and that when he smelled an onion field he "first realized that there was something beyond all our petty personal quarrels and arguments." Variously a ship's cook and deckhand, Huncke preferred burglary, thievery, street beggary, acting as a shill for pickpockets, getting paid $10 by Kinsey to talk about his sexual experiences. Now on methadone, he preaches against the use of drugs and alcohol.

Genres: Biography, Autobiography, Memoir, Nonfiction, Drugs

76 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Writer, outlaw, and legendary storyteller who introduced the writers of the Beat Generation to New York’s underworld of sex, drugs, and crime, and whose use of the word “beat” lent the literary movement its name.

Reviews

[Zack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Herbert Huncke was a Times Square hustler and junkie who hung out with all the Beats in the '40s and is supposedly the one who got Kerouac thinking about spontaneous writing. Not counting Gregory Corso's poems, before I read "Go" this was my favorite book from that scene. It's very practical, telling all the hard knocks Huncke received backstage over the years as a sensitive, habitual mooch, told without any literary pretense, with a timeless, streetwise intelligence.

[Tommy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huncke's writing style is like his speaking style: precise and direct. It is fully of honesty. Dig it!

[Mat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a visceral recount of Huncke's various ups and downs over the years. Sometimes you find yourself feeling sorry for Huncke but mostly you just shake your head and say 'he had it coming' like the times he goes BACK to the scene of the crime, somewhere he had just burgled or broken into (you find yourself thinking 'don't do it Huncke, don't do it'), only to be inevitably arrested. I mean that's just plain stupidity.

Although Huncke might be a man devoid of much common sense and stability, he makes up for it plenty by being one hell of a charming storyteller - a raconteur - as some have called him. My only gripe is, and it's an important one considering that it's supposed to be an 'autobiography' - how much of what he writes should we exactly believe? He's a self-admitted conman, hustler, dope fiend etc. Are we to trust this as a reliable account of his life? Well, it's hard to tell. Nevertheless, his portraits of Burroughs, Cassady, Ginsberg, Orlovsky and Burroughs' wife, Joan Adams, who was very dear to Huncke, are both fascinating and additive because they offer different angles heretofore unoffered by other beat scholars and biographers. His story about Peter Orlovsky's brother was both sad and funny. It's a pity he didn't talk about Kerouac in great depth, but he said that he was more or less "indifferent" about Kerouac, even though he was seemingly likeable. I have heard that Kerouac was a pretty stingy guy when it came to money so this might be why Huncke wasn't interested in him (because he couldn't get any money off the guy to survive or buy drugs).

The best parts of the book was when Huncke talked about his relationship with Janine Pommy-Vega and Elise Cowen, a woman who was in love with Ginsberg and who later committed suicide.

There's plenty of interesting stuff in here to sink you teeth into but it's no Naked Lunch or On the Road or even a Howl for that matter. But Huncke has his own unique place among the beats, a character and someone known about through the writings of others rather than through his own writing. It's a pity because if Huncke had spent more time devoted to writing, he could have produced some masterpieces I believe because the quality of his writing is mostly very good.
Highly recommended for beat fans.

[Andrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by the man who gave William S. Burroughs his first shot. I hunted for this book for a long time before I found an affordable copy. Great accounting of old time junkie days among the beats.

[Still · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can’t really recommend this book to anyone unless they're obsessed with the Beat lit movement.

With that in mind only Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Neal Casady, and William S. Burroughs are discussed at any length.

With the exception of Neal Casady who drives Huncke and Burroughs back to NYC from Texas (which is covered in two paragraphs) references to other Beat luminaries are usually in connection with Huncke begging them for $20 here & there to buy heroin.

There are however a few very interesting segments between pages 77-98 on William S. Burroughs & his wife Joan.
William S. Burroughs and his wife moved almost 50 miles from Houston to New Waverly, Texas.
They later got in touch with Allen Ginsberg and got him to persuade Huncke to travel by bus out to East Texas.
The intention was to have Huncke bring a container full of marijuana seeds with him so that they could start a crop of marijuana. They were planning to grow marijuana, harvest it, and drive it back up to New York City to sell.
Naturally Huncke screws that up and arrives without the seeds.
They eventually score some low-grade marijuana seeds in Houston but the weed turns out to be very, very weak.

The majority of the book is a sorry saga of Huncke’s ups and downs as a heroin addict …mostly downs.
He sleeps in various 42nd Street all night cinemas when he’s out of cash, which is often. When he has cash, he holes up in single room occupancy dives.
He hustles all over Midtown Manhattan teaming up with other junkies to commit assorted burglaries and automobile break-ins.

He winds up in jail over and over for petty crimes and drug possession. He’s eventually sentenced to prison for six years. As soon as he gets out of Dannemora, he hits 42nd Street and becomes addicted once again.

The writing is nothing special.
Example:

“About this time the OD’s started. You’d hear of somebody and boom! The next day they OD’d. It got to be quite sordid, this ODing thing. From having been a really exciting and exhilarating scene, it had passed into a session of chaos. And it began to decay. Things were rotten, and more and more people were getting sick or dying.” (page 178)

The stories are colorful in a way but nothing special like Edward Bunker or Jack Black’s “You Can’t Win”.

His attempts at moralizing are pathetic little nuggets like “kids should stay off drugs but marijuana’s okay…”

Huncke was a very small time criminal. When he wasn’t passing forged prescriptions or bouncing checks all over New York City, he’d prey on those who befriended him. He’d steal from the few close friends he had. On page 188 he whines about Ginsberg refusing to give him any money for drugs:

“Allen had blithely refused to give me any money for drugs. ‘If you need it for food, yes.’ He’d gotten onto one of those routines. At the same time he was telling me I had to find myself a place to live. I looked the place over. The only thing I could think of that might bring me in some cash was this goddamn rug, so I just tucked it under my arm and staggered out into the cold. I dropped it, I think, for about 15 dollars. It was a nice rug, probably four-by-eight, and nicely woven. I believe it was domestic –not the real McCoy- but it was a good looking rug. The people that got it were delighted with it and assured me that if I found anything like that again in the future to be sure and look them up.
…Now, at one time I stole from Allen, and he just wailed (like with that rug), but he wouldn’t hesitate to buy if it was something he needed. If it was a tape recorder, and he was in need of a tape recorder, he’d be happy to get a buy even though he knew it was taken from somebody else. So I never worried much. When Allen got after me for taking his rug I felt guilty about it, but I couldn’t feel all the chagrin and humiliation that I should have felt. You live by your standards. If you say you don’t want to be stolen from, then don’t buy somebody else’s stolen goods. That’s exactly where it’s at.”


Now, isn’t that perfect junkie logic???
This book is full of similar odd ball pearls of wisdom.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sad book by a survivor who became famous more because of the friends he kept rather than because of his own actions. It shows us the realistic view of what is was to be beat in the 40's and 50's, dope alcohol and prison in repeated patterns. Huncke is one of the inspirational people the beatniks patterned their movement after. I am glad I read this book, it shows how those who were beat and not famous truly lived something a half century later we never think about.

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a riveting read, but an important piece of the "Beat" movement in here! Huncke is very involved with the people who become icons of that movement, mostly through drug use, but in other ways as well. And he has a lot to say, not only about his experiences, but about life in general. I think he would have been fascinating to meet, but I wouldn't let him move in!

[Dylan Kiewel · Rating 3 out of 5]

more interested in reading the contemporaneous more in the moment no doubt rawer more poetic journal than this after the fact life story that doesn't really read as urgently written, doesn't really ever feel vibrant. still though, interesting guy this huncke, very cool move to tell a mass audience on a talk show all the drugs you're currently on. respect.

[Bernardo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another piece of the jigsaw puzzle of the Beat Generation… a must read in my opinion!

Crazy to think how unknown and underrated Huncke is…

[David Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Guilty of Everything: The Autobiography of Herbert Huncke by Herbert Huncke (Paragon House 1990) (362.29092) (3851).

Here’s the first-person account of the legendary junkie Herbert Huncke (aka “Huncke the Junkie”) who lived from 1915 through 1996. This account provides a fascinating glimpse into the life and lifestyle of hardcore narcotic addicts as that culture evolved in the Twentieth century.

Herbert Huncke is best remembered as one of the original “Beat Generation” founders and scribes. Along with author William Burroughs, Huncke was a mentor and terribly bad example for the Jack Kerouac - Allen Ginsberg - Neal Cassady "Beat" crowd. In fact, Herbert Huncke appears in Kerouac’s 1957 novel On the Road as the fictionalized character “Elmo Hassel.”

Neither apologetic nor rueful, Guilty of Everything is filled with the kind of tales that old warriors share with their own kind after a few drinks (or joints) have been passed around a campfire.

Here’s my favorite piece of Herbert Huncke trivia: When Huncke was an old, broke, broken, and sick man, he lived in the Chelsea Hotel in New York City during the last few years of his life. His rent during those years was paid by an anonymous fan who had never even met Huncke. Huncke’s benefactor was later disclosed to be none other than Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead.

My rating: 7.25/10, finished 8/22/23 (3851).

[Andrea Janov · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this much more than the diaries, much more focused and insightful for someone who is just starting to explore Hunke's body of work. You really get the sense of his person and his persona. You see just why the whole Beat Generation was inspired by him, yet why, though he was just as skilled a writer, he never got the recognition in the same time.

[Steve Dodds · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amen.

[Zach Werbalowsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

adjacent to art pepper's straight life. Not as good, but an interesting individual nonetheless.

[Jeff Tucker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my favorite of the Beat Generation biographies but interesting for it's unique perspective. I can't help but notice that Herbert Hunke was a heroin addict for much of his life and managed to outlive other Beat Generation figures like Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy by 30 years.

[Lori Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A not-so-well-written but fascinating book. It really illustrated the mind-set of the addicts and homeless that lived in New York. It really was good reading but I found myself judging and I didn't like that in me. Not the fault of the book.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

very personal, relatable, self-confessional street stories

[Gerard]

Times Square in the 1940s. The Bucket of Blood, and everythang....

[J. Gonzalez- Blitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hustling, dope, 20th-century queer culture, whatever the subject matter it flows like music in Huncke's narrative prose style.

[Mills College Library]

P Hanuman