William S Burroughs

I would like to do my American author paper on William S. Burroughs. Burroughs was born in Missouri and traveled around across the United States throughout his life time. Burroughs was a main part of the Beat Generation and was friends with famous writers such as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. I am interested in this writer because of his ability to write about things which had effected his life such as being a heroin addict. I am most interested in his experimental writing fueled on politics and science fiction.
Burroughs collaborated with Kerouac on writing a novel loosely based off of the murder of a homosexual which Kerouac and their friend Lucian Carr were involved in. A few years later after accidentally shooting his wife to death Burroughs was inspired to continue writing. Once Burroughs stated, “I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan’s Death.“ Burroughs is known as one of the most influential American authors of the 20th century due to his obscene experiential writing on subjects such as drug addiction, sexuality, and paranoia.
Burroughs writing went against the standard convention of language and is known to be “fragmentary and abstract.” He influenced many science fiction authors like J.G Ballard and Michael Moorcock. Burroughs’ many abstract and controversial writing will give me a lot of reference to base a literary argument. Burroughs anarchistic writing inspired many counterculture movements such as the beats, hippie, and even punks. I would like to see what his ideas are and see the similarity in the viewpoints of the punk rock movement. I would like to read a book from each other Burroughs writing period, to see how he changed and matured as a writer. The books I am considering are: Junkie, Naked Lunch, and The Wild Boys. I plan to read these books in the order of earliest to latest in order to see the difference in his writing and change in themes (if any).
I have never read any books from the Beatnik generation and would really like too, because in a sense these are the people which lead to revolutionary movements which I am interested in like the hippie generation and punk movement. William Burroughs sounds like a very interesting character and since he has been through a rough life I anticipate his writing to be really raw and in your face. This raw writing is what intrigues me the most, and I am really excited to start on this project.