Sam M’s Reviews > Junky > Status Update

incredible read still; a skillful balance of cynical humor and disturbingly cold tragedy. i like the lack of chapters, simply floating between memorable events. it feels like listening to someone tell a story in real life, jumping back and forth, saying “oh and so-and-so from earlier also blah blah”

the best thing about burroughs’ style is how lively death feels, even in the full extent of its decay, and how dead life feels. reading his fellow junkies recount tales of murder and violence with giggles isn’t quite upsetting in the superficial sense (i.e. simply hearing them say tragedy occurred) but more-so because it’s really sad to see these men, who weren’t like this at one point succumb to it